Declan McCullagh on Pressure-CookerGate
plus.google.com
plus.google.com
http://www.fireworksforever.com/products-page/firecracker/m-...
Only $11.59 for a box of 36.
The author of this inane hit piece Declan McCullagh, gives his title as "Chief Political Correspondent" at CNET, and an employee of CBS. He posts that Ms. Catalano posted "photos of explosives."
Are M-66 explosives? Yep. Firecrackers are in fact explosives. They are also legal to purchase, possess, and light.
How is posting a stock photo of these firecrackers to your Facebook feed on July 4th relevant to anything at all? CNET Chief Political Correspondent Declan McCullagh certainly is implying that posting such a stock photo gives the JTTF, whose members are generally coordinated under and paid by the FBI, the right to search your house and ask questions about pressure cookers which you happen to have recently done a google search for. Why does CNET Chief Political Correspondent Declan McCullagh believe this is justified or that anyone would consider posting a stock photo of firecrackers on the 4th of July to be something anyone would reasonably expect should lead to an armed house search and interrogation by JTTF members?
What does this stock firecracker photo posted on July 4th have to do with JTTF agents searching this couple's house and asking them specific questions about whether they owned a pressure cooker?
The fact is that you have absolutely no idea what happened, or even what some of the words in your comment (like "JTTF") actually mean. But you've got strong opinions and a lot of outrage. Because you're an outrage tourist. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be angrier to find out that the FBI HADN'T been dragnetting Google.
Remember that most Google searches are encrypted these days, plus it would be profoundly stupid for the NSA/FBI to reveal a program targeting citizens by rolling trucks to their doors at the mere mention of "pressure cooker backpack".
1. The NSA using monitoring technology against civilians in the country, against their charter. 2. County sheriffs deputies who are members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force obtaining this classified information from the NSA 3. Aforementioned county sheriffs accidentally divulging said classified data
I'd listen to an argument that points 1 or 3 occurred. Point 2? Way more likely that somebody read facebook than interagency communication of classified data from a classified program to a local law enforcement officer with no security clearance.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6142909
Of course you already saw that some time ago and chose not to answer, but that post does show that you are aware that I know exactly what the JTTF is, contrary to the bald faced and audacious lies you have just stated.
"JTTF" does not not necessarily mean what you think it means; and in fact the interpretation you've used has probably already been shot down; David Gomez says LEOs involved in FBI-managed JTTFs all have federal credentials. But of course you knew that, right?
JTTFs are manned by both federal and local LEOs. The Chicago JTTF, for example, absolutely includes detectives from both Chicago Police Department and Cook County Sheriff's Police.
I would say that labeling someone who posted factual evidence that M-66 explosives are in fact legal and relatively ordinary recreational fireworks as an "outrage tourist" is a beautiful example of character assassination. Far more so than merely alluding to the title of a self-identified media correspondent who goes on to make a defense that the photos are public and that law enforcement can access them, while de-emphasizing/distracting from the fact that neither google searches for pressure cookers nor facebook photos of fireworks merit a law enforcement visit. Verbatim from declan's G+ post "Having curious local cops ask you questions about your public photos of explosives is not [a big story]."
If one or the other is potentially happening, then there is a cause for concern that at least justifies a personal article on medium by Catalano. Had law enforcement actually revealed to Catalano, that hey, we're visiting you because you posted fireworks on your facebook, then she probably wouldn't have written that article. However, being investigated in a Kafkaesque manner, where you have little idea what your original crime could have been since you are a law-abiding citizen (searching for pressure cookers or posting fireworks photos on facebook is pretty innocuous behavior) might lead to legitimate speculation on the methods of law enforcement.
EDIT: None of this is to say that mass media isn't overly eager to report stories without enough support, and kudos to declan's investigative skills and intent, but I do think that drawing conclusions based on contrarianism and real character assassination of someone who added legitimate facts to the discussion isn't very productive.
Uhhh. Was that just to bury the very valid and very simple question at the end of the post, or for no reason at all?
It is reliable that some people searched the house and asked that, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JTTF
"JTTF agents" in this case would be FBI agents part of a JTTF I guess. As a tip, if someone uses bigger words than necessary, simply replace them mentally and see if there's still something there.
The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks.”
So it wasn't Google, but it was because of searching for pressure cookers; it wasn't posting images of firecrackers on facebook, but it was a tip-off based on (private) surveillance.
If anything, as I wrote, it makes the cops look even more dumb. And if I'm a cop who's told by my supervisor to ask some guy about a bomb, and we have a 45-minute discussion, in the wake of the Boston bombing I definitely will ask about pressure cookers. This is how the real world works outside of HN, folks.
I have a question for you, and maybe a suggestion for an article.
Around 2005/2006 I believe you published this article suggesting that cell phones could be remotely monitored. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html
I think that article took on a life of its own, perhaps (?) beyond what you had intended, and since then has been the source of many articles saying the Feds could remotely turn on any cell phone at any time.
I once spent an afternoon reading various articles and they all used your article as their sole source.
I also think that folks suggested it wasn't any cell phone, but a particular few phones that could be reprogrammed, or that never really turned off, perhaps on a specific few carriers. (And there was some speculation that it wasn't even the phone, but a bugged phone battery.)
I haven't read anything further since 2006 about the Fed's ability to turn on cell phone mics when the phone is off, so I was wondering if you could do a follow up.
1. Have you heard anything further on this?
2. Did your article (inadvertently) create
unfounded rumors/conspiracy?
3. Do you think that Android phones, mostly open
sourced with a few proprietary drivers, or
iPhones could be susceptible to this?
4. If so, how might you answer the question of how
are all those employees at all those companies,
Apple, Google, Verizon, ... being kept unaware,
or being kept silent?
But recently, Dana Priest at the WaPo made a claim that:
By September 2004, a new NSA technique enabled the agency to find cellphones even when they were turned off. JSOC troops called this “The Find,” and it gave them thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored insurgency in Iraq, according to members of the unit. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-gr...)
Which made me rethink my dismissal.
Still, I haven't seen anything other than your piece and Dana Priest's piece suggesting anyone has this capability.
I'd love to read a follow up.
I cast around for a followup a year or so after the original article ran but didn't have enough to warrant a second story. In terms of remote activation of microphone, that also could be done with malware without any company's participation, which is what today's WSJ piece suggests. Re: the WashPost piece, I saw it too. I speculated via Twitter at the time that it could be referring to last cell tower pinged.
I just now read the WSJ article and while I am probably wrong to feel this way, I am a bit happier they need to get me to load malware on my phone, rather than the spooky action at a distance, reach out and touch someone approach suggested in 2005.
Priest's article is vague enough that last cell tower pinged may be what she was getting at, but the context, IIRC, was that the Army could determine down to a few feet where people were. Well, yes, maybe that's just cell tower triangulation and having a quick response.
Oh well, perhaps we'll know before the black helicopters arrive over the city. :(
That is as irrelevant as saying, "An M-66 is an illegal firecracker, banned in all states where firecrackers are illegal." Are they legal in the state where Catalano resides? Even if they are, it only takes a nosy neighbor to make a phone call about explosives to generate an overboard police response.
Also worth noting. She was a pretty loud blogger post 9/11 and during the Iraq invasion. She ran a very popular Iraq invasion blog, lauded for updating about the invasion faster than the mainstream media. It would not surprise me in the least if the Feds have her on some list or another (not saying that's ok mind you). The Washington Post article about this talks about whether she'd be on a watch list, and Michele talks about searching for how to cook lentils and ending up on a watch list ("This is where we are at," Catalono wrote. "Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list."). That part is Michele knowing exactly how to craft a sound bite for media consumption. I suspect this story is demonstrating a real abuse by the terrorism obsessed police / feds, and the rest is Michele throwing fuel on the fire for the headlines.
A county police "task force" monitoring local citizen Facebook posts is a MUCH more plausible explanation. Still disturbing, but the reporting on this so far has been terrible.
There's now a guardian article up about this with contradictory responses from the FBI and local police.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police...
I find it unlikely that the JTTF don't have access to prism and other tools, so that seems a more likely avenue to me; searching for pressure cookers could lead to all sorts of non-https pages on amazon for example. After all that's exactly what these tools are designed to do - dig whatever the operators consider flags for terrorism this week out of the haystack of Internet traffic.
You're making two big assumptions here:
1. PRISM is the only secret program with access to web browsing data.
2. People with access to PRISM and similar programs can't pass low-priority leads to local cops.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...
The information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded sharing with the other two agencies. The NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism, using software that “enables our partners to see which selectors [search terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism”.
The FBI have access to PRISM data, and they run JTTF operations. Do you believe that Joint Terrorism Task Forces have no access to the data selected by PRISM searches? I was under the impression that this information was shared, but perhaps you know better? Obviously the local police tasked with following up wouldn't have access, but I'd expect the FBI to have it, and frankly find that a more persuasive argument than a picture of some fireworks.
If the police or JTTF are investigating people as terrorist suspects on the basis of fireworks posted to Facebook on the 4th of July, their resources are absurdly misallocated, but I sincerely doubt they would bother for that alone.
I'm not sure if the original story is true. But this guy's interpretation of the events does seem even further off-base.
Ah...I get it...that would never happen in the US.
Any hard sources on this besides this guy blabbing off and making more drama?
"+Declan McCullagh In her account she mentions the cops specifically asking her husband if they have a pressure cooker. Assuming that is true, where do you think they got that idea from? Besides, how many millions of people do you think posted pictures of fireworks, even relatively powerful ones like M-66s, around 04July? What do you think made Ms. Catalano's photo(s?) particularly worthy of follow-up?
It seems to me you are bending over backwards to make this story seem less worrisome than it is. But like others who have replied to your post, I don't find a whole lot of comfort in your alternate scenario even if it turns out to be more in line with what actually happened.
But anyway, you're a journalist, aren't you? Do you have any plans to try to get to the bottom of what actually happened here? Or do you just plan to stand on the sidelines and try to pooh-pooh the whole thing?"
To which good ol' Declan responds: "Alas, I'm working on an unrelated story today."
Well that settles that.
Poor diversion from M.L. Hunt's point that as a professional journalist you should certainly recognize that there is nothing in your rhetoric that somehow undermines the original claims of an internet search possibly triggering a police visit. You are just fanning the smoke into another direction, for what purpose I don't know. As you mentioned already, shouldn't you be writing another article instead of spending time posting and responding to comments on a story you have absolutely no relevant information about?
But you're right, I should be writing the other article.
But how could a journalist be such on the affirmative without presenting any source ? We can't even see the facebook post he's talking about. The guy reacts to a shitstorm by providing unsourced opinion with a well established media name to link a cop operation with a stock firework picture supposed to be posted in USA on 4th.
That's at least lacking rigorous work.
And yes, I think with your reputation, you're expected not to have weak public opinion. That's a responsibility which come with social weight, sorry about that (and to be clear : I'm ok with you having unsourced opinions, just not when it implies influencing people).