Long Island, NY - Police say they have questioned a former
employee of a New York computer company after his workplace computer search
history revealed inquires for “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks,” but no
criminality was found.
The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement
Thursday saying detectives questioned the man after interviewing
representatives from his former employer, which reported suspicious computer
searches.
On Thursday, a Long Island woman writing under the name
Michele Catalano speculated in a blog post that six agents from what she
describes as the joint terrorism task force came to her home Wednesday because
agents were monitoring the family’s Google searches.
She writes that her
husband was interviewed by police and that her son was asleep when they
arrived. She did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Suffolk County police department told a different story.
In an email sent to reporters on Thursday, the police said
criminal intelligence detectives got a tip from a computer company that a
former employee had conducted suspicious searches on a workplace computer.
The
searches included “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks.”
“Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home
to ask about the suspicious Internet searches,” and the incident was ruled
“non-criminal in nature,” according to the statement.
Spokesmen for the New York office of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Nassau County Police Department said they had not been
involved in the incident.
In her blog post, Catalano said police arrived at her house
at about 9 a.m., after she had left for work, but while her husband was home.
“Do you own a pressure cooker?” an officer asked her
husband, according to Catalano’s account. Her husband responded the couple had
a rice cooker to make quinoa. The next question: “What the hell is quinoa?”
A law enforcement source said the visit was made by local
Long Island police.
Catalano said the incident left her shaken.
“All I know is - if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in
the near future, I’m not doing it online,” Catalano said.
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