[mindcrime]

Same here, but... in light of everything we've learned about govt. surveillance in the past month or two, it seems a lot more plausible than it would have only a few months ago.

OTOH, if this is true, it screams "incompetence" pretty loudly, IMO. Two people googling for "pressure cooker" and "backpack" doesn't add up to squat. I mean, seriously, if I wanted a f'ng pressure cooker to build a bomb with, I'd just go to Wal-mart or Target and pay cash for it. Same for a backpack. You don't need to get on the Internet and do massive amounts of research to buy a pressure cooker and a backpack if you want to be the next Boston bomber. If they're really chasing down this many false positives with no additional evidence to suggest nefarious intent, they're wasting a shit-ton of tax money to do it, and probably overlooking all the real terrorists in the process.

[cantankerous]

You're right that it seems more plausible, but these surveillance programs have been going supposedly going on for years now. These guys in the story said they do this 100 times+ per week. Where are all the other stories of this happening? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I am saying it's weird that all of a sudden the FBI would start making house calls after all these still-largely-unverified-by-various-agencies leaks would take place. Anybody hear any other stories like this?

[mindcrime]

These guys in the story said they do this 100 times+ per week.

That's a good point. If they were doing this even a couple of times a month (or probably per year) you have to expect that it would be getting reported.

[checker]

And these officers are located where? Are they flying all over the country every day to investigate these 100's of incidents? Or, are they based out of the nearest city and following up on 100's of incidents local to that city's population?

Even if said agent was exaggerating his/her workload, this story sounds fishy.