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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I haven't backtracked an inch.

So you still "don't buy this, at all"? Despite a credible news organization's confirmation that the FBI was aware of a local PD's visit to this family?

The mind boggles.

What makes my mind boggle is that idea that people would rely on a single blog post to assume the conclusion that the FBI is dragnetting Google searches for lead generation for suspicionless searches.

No, wait, that doesn't boggle my mind at all.

Who said it was suspicionless? That's just the author's assertion. They could have been targeted for some other reason (the frequent overseas travel for example) and then the searches came up when they were already being targeted.

Does that make it better?

Yes that does make it better. If the FBI are calling around to people, purely based on google searches that's terrible. If they are calling around to people based on a whole pile of other things that might be suspicious that's much better.

Tptacek, it's called clustering and outlier detection. Look it up before you make a complete fool of yourself.

dyinglobster, it's called the Bayesian Base Rate Fallacy, and you just fell for it.

It's called common sense.

NSA Collects 'Word for Word' Every Domestic Communication, Says Former Analyst

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-dec1...

All we know is that the local police visited her house. That is the entirety of what has been confirmed by The Guardian.

There is absolutely nothing with waiting for definitive evidence before making your mind up about something.

We know that the local police visited her house, and that the FBI knew about it.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable in trusting the author that the officers said they were with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is one of a few plausible ways the FBI would know about local PD activity.

Her credibility on the big fact is established. What are we missing, then? The details on what the questions were? Whether or not they were asked about their Google history? Where the intel came from?

For all we know, the FBI knew about it because so many people called them up to ask about it that they figured they'd call the local PD and ask them about it.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable in trusting the author that the officers said they were with the Joint Terrorism Task Force

From this WaPo article http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/01... :

“They were officers from the Nassau County Police Department who identified themselves as such,”

You might, justifiably, be suspicious of the police account. But all we have to go on are two contradicting accounts. Why not wait until we have some actual evidence?

The Guardian quote is incredibly weaselly (when ellipses appear in a quote it's a good sign that liberties are being taken). The same person stated that no one from the JTTF visited her house in any capacity, which includes police involved in the same.

So thus far -- assuming that the police aren't lying -- we've gone from terrorism task force visit caused by Google searches (that they do "100s of", apparently), to maybe, possibly, some local police visited her for some reason.

"assuming that the police aren't lying "

Unfortunately, this is an awfully huge assumption to make!

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