In a conversation with The Atlantic Wire, FBI spokesperson Peter Donald 
  confirmed The Guardian's report that the FBI was not involved in the 
  visit itself. Asked if the FBI was involved in providing information 
  that led to the visit, Donald replied that he could not answer the 
  question at this point, as he didn't know

Edit: Interesting that asking for evidence warrants downvotes.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police...

  Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task
  force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday. A spokesman
  for the FBI told to the Guardian on Thursday that its
  investigators were not involved in the visit, but that "she
  was visited by Nassau County police department … They were
  working in conjunction with Suffolk County police 
  department."

  A spokesman for the FBI told to the Guardian on 
  Thursday that its investigators were not involved 
  in the visit, but that "she was visited by Nassau 
  County police department … They were working in
  conjunction with Suffolk County police department.

So FBI became JTTF, which in turn became Nassau cops?

This is why we should all stop listening to the 24 hour news machine and wait a while before everything is cleared up and fully presented. This is a developing story and clinging to one or two tidbits finagled from the authorities here and there aren't going to cut it.

It makes full sense that the FBI would get a report and share with local law enforcement (members of JTTF) to follow up. I'm still very skeptical that this all originated with google searches, but the story of "JTTF agents" checks out.

So it's certainly possible that three black SUVs worth of the local sheriff's deputies, all of whom were members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, showed up to question her about her internet searching.

Or this fiction writer is not portraying an accurate version of the events.

The officers are basically deputized as JTTF members. It's a common model that's been around for a long time. For example, the US Marshalls have a fugitive task force for picking up suspects with arrest warrants and the DEA has something similar for drug raids.

  Just *who* came to the residence beyond some scary 
  looking guys in SUVs who said they were FBI.

That comment also had the complaint about downvotes for asking for evidence before I replied.

I agree that there is no concrete evidence that the police showed up as a direct result of them searching for specific keywords. There probably never will be. But how would she prove it? Could anyone prove it in public? Would any investigation that looked into the matter ever be declassified? Could Congress hold a hearing in open session and get answers about the incident?

Unless her husband had a recording of the conversation she claims happened here:

  "Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker 
  bomb?" My husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them 
  if they themselves weren’t curious as to how a pressure 
  cooker bomb works, if they ever looked it up. Two of them 
  admitted they did.

Or unless one of the officers involved in that conversation confirms the conversation happened as she reported, we'll never know.

It is completely reasonable to be skeptical of her interpretation of the event. But it is also reasonable to wonder about the consequences of living in a society where her interpretation is a reasonable one, even if it is unlikely. Before Snowden's leaks many people would declare her a nut for even thinking her searches could be related to the investigation. Now we have evidence that the story could happen as she presented it, even if it didn't in this case.

Local governments are governments too. Just because the Feds didn't show up doesn't mean this isn't highly problematic behavior. The fact remains that harmless private communication was used as an excuse to interfere in the lives of ordinary citizens. This is what is so problematic about it.

EDIT: After reading some more critical comments, I should state that I am ASSUMING what she said is true - that the agents actually asked her about Internet searches. I have to admit that she could just be making that part up.

The Guardian says they confirmed that there was a visit, and were told that it was a local police force.

The Atlantic's headline was updated to reflect that.

Besides, in the original article, she said the guns were holstered when they were talking to her husband and from the tone, they were cordial and shook his hand before they left. Hardly a "raid".

So I don't think it can be dismissed as a friendly encounter. I would certainly feel extremely discomforted by such a visit.

IANAL: They took a gamble by letting them in the door without a warrant. That opened themselves up to legal liability, regardless of "nothing to hide" innocence.

If they had found anything that looked suspicious, it would be a different story. They lucked out, this time.

A law school professor and a police investigator teach a class of law students why you can gain nothing by talking to the police: https://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc

From the article, "the Suffolk and Nassau police, which The Guardian reported were the authorities that effected the raid".

As to the downvotes: you could have pointed out the discrepancy between "Feds" and "cops" (the article's title was changed to reflect that) without turns of phrase such as "we have only her word", "hearsay", "I'm not calling her a liar".

I agree that we need more information before jumping to conclusions, but the additional context you're providing doesn't give me much comfort.

But local cops acting dumb is a different story entirely than LOCAL COPS WATCHING OUR GOOGLE SEARCHES.

M-66 explosives that look like firecrackers.

I don't doubt that some law enforcement officers from some agency showed up at her doorstep for some reason. And I can accept that there were - at some point - questions about bombs for some reason or another.

But I suspect that her internet searches contributed to this appearance is (at best) hysteria or (at worst) convenient mistruths.

"The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement this evening that answers the great mystery of the day.

After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature."

Considering the hostile skepticism on the thread about the article Ms Catalano posted, I would not be surprised if other people (especially those without professional writing credentials and a million-strong twitter audience) had decided not to come forward with their stories in the past.

There is nothing wrong with skepticism, and I would dispute that it was "hostile". We can't just go around accepting every story we read because it is a story we want it to be real.

Why is it that a private citizen is automatically doubted when they make a claim that is easily verifiable but when the government makes a claim that has been repeatedly contradicted by multiple people over the span of years, including at least two sitting US Senators, the government's claims are taken at face value?

Shouldn't her story get a minimum benefit of doubt until some independent reporting can be done on the claims? Especially when everything she claims is plausible given what is known about the government's capabilities.

Uh, didn't really give me a chance to answer there, did you?

I would say that the vast majority of people were skeptical of government claims that Snowden was lying. So the rest of your post is describing a situation that I did not witness.

I don't think hyperbole is necessary. In this case the facts are scary enough (i.e. most people don't consider the police an armed gang).

Who wants the government to have virtually omniscient awareness of their activities?

Actually a significant portion of the population DO consider the police an armed gang, and have done so for quite some time. For starters, poor people in urban areas. The difference is that now wealthier people are starting to be treated the same way poor people have been treated all along.

Growing up I was far more scared of the police than anyone else in what was not a very nice area.

This wasn't cultural conditioning either.

It was the experience of being routinely stopped, questioned, accused, intimidated and occasionally humiliated by being made to partially disrobe. It makes for a terrible feeling of powerlessness when someone else can do whatever they want to you at any time and any effort to avoid much less rebuke the situation will only make it worse.

At least one friend of mine from that time is now a police officer. His experience has only confirmed the prevalence of this ugly "at war" mentality in in law enforcement.

The police are the very definition of an armed gang. Just a legally sanctioned one.

They have a monopoly on violence - what else would you call it?

Unfortunately, after the drug war stuff started ratcheting up + 911, the proper balance has shifted.

With a knee on your back, your face pressed against the ground, barely able to breath and watching your wife going through the same thing. You then might re-evaluate the hyperbole, but you most likely won't because of the feral panic state you would be in.

Because the militarization of police, and the increasing use of SWAT, are trends that argue against this.

What if next time instead of sending regular officers they send in SWAT?

Give it another few years of militarizing the police force. Government-funded vigilantes with an uniform and a pack of laws to protect them from the consequences of their own abuse is a recipe for succes, tried and tested from China to South America.