A woman has revealed the four words to avoid when Googling them to avoid a surprise visit from the police.
Michele Catalano and her husband, from Long Island, New York, were shopping for everyday household items in 2013 when they unexpectedly found themselves in trouble.
She wrote on her blog at the time about the events that followed the incident: “Googling certain things created a perfect storm of terrorist profiling.”
Michele, a freelance writer, wanted to order a pressure cooker for herself, while her husband wanted to buy a new backpack.
This led to them searching online separately for the items they both wanted – an exercise that normally wouldn’t raise any alarms for the police.
A woman has revealed the four words to avoid when Googling them to avoid a surprise visit from the police (file image)
However, her husband typed in keywords for both items from his work computer two days later, just before he quit his job.
IT staff flagged the searches and his former employer reported it to the local Suffolk County police.
This was reported by staff in response to the actions of the people allegedly responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings earlier that year.
In the incident, which occurred during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, two individuals placed two homemade pressure cooker bombs that exploded 14 seconds and 210 meters apart near the finish line of the race.
Three people were killed and hundreds were injured in the attack, including 17 who lost limbs.
After the couple’s inadvertent internet search, several black SUVs pulled up to the couple’s home to make sure they were not a terrorist threat.
So if you don’t want the police to show up at your door, don’t search for the words “pressure cooker bomb” along with the word “backpack.”
After the couple’s unintended internet search, several black SUVs pulled up to the couple’s home to make sure they weren’t a terrorist threat (File Photo)
Michele described the surreal experience on her blog, saying her husband “saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two on the sidewalk in front of the house and one pulled up behind my husband’s Jeep in the driveway, as if to prevent him from leaving.”
In response to the security breach, the Suffolk County Police Department released a statement saying, “Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore computer company about suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee.”
Michele wrote on her blog, “More than anything, I felt a great sense of fear. This is where we are. Where you don’t expect privacy. Where learning to cook lentils could potentially land you on a watch list.” She added jokingly, “All I know is that if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not going to buy it online. I’m scared. And not the right stuff.”