Officials investigated a New York man last week for terrorism after being tipped off that he had been doing online searches for pressure cookers and backpacks. The police came, searched the house, asked some questions, but didn't make any arrests.
Reports identify the man as an ex-employee of surveillance manufacturer Speco. Additionally, the local police say it was his employers who saw the searches on a work computer and called it in.
[UPDATE: Speco told Techcrunch it was not them. No other information was provided.]
Should the company have more to go on before they put this guy in the spotlight? Should they have called him first? Or were they trying to play it safe?
From the Suffolk Police press release:
Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. 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.”