Google 'Pressure Cookers' and 'Backpacks,' Get a Visit from the Cops

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Google 'Pressure Cookers' and 'Backpacks,' Get a Visit from the Cops - Philip Bump - The Atlantic Wire

Ever since details of the NSA's surveillance infrastructure were leaked by Edward Snowden, the agency has been insistent on the boundaries of the information it collects. It is not, by law, allowed to spy on Americans — although there are exceptions of which it takes advantage. Its PRISM program, under which it collects internet content, does not include information from Americans unless those Americans are connected to terror suspects by no more than two other people. It collects metadata on phone calls made by Americans, but reportedly stopped collecting metadata on Americans' internet use in 2011. So how, then, would the government know what Catalano and her husband were searching for?

> Michele was Googling pressure cookers.
> Her husband was looking at backpacks.
> So six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house.

How’d the government know what they were Googling?
I think we all know the answer to that question.

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