This thought popped into my head last night as I was falling asleep. I’m sure the FBI has thought of it. Anyway, imagine an undercover officer is hanging out in a message board or other means where, say, wannabe domestic terrorists (WTBs) hang out. So the officer, posing as a WTB, says he’s heard of some chemical that will magnify the effects of a pipe bomb. Except it’s a nonsensical and nonexistent chemical, say, 2,4 pentahexadramidolphine or something. So now, anyone who Googles … that … the FBI knows at least somewhat who and where they are.
Well, the FBI certainly does conduct counterterrorism sting operations including by monitoring internet message boards and otherwise trolling online for would be terrorists. Of how much utility this is in actually preventing terrorism is another question. What you propose—essentially a sort of “canary trap” operation—wouldn’t actually demonstrate any kind of terroristic intent as even with the highly liberalized interpretation of “threat” under the US PATRIOT Act, doing an internet search for explosives or information about weapons is not illegal or by itself cause for further investigation. I’m not sure that you could even convince a FISA court judge to issue a surveillance warrant on the basis of a Google search for a fake chemical, and those guys hand out surveillance warrants like Cracker Jack prizes.
It would be a kind of sting.
I don’t suppose there’s an in-the-open factual answer to this question, but it does seem like something that might happen - given, for example, law enforcement organisations went as far as creating a fake encrypted chat app to catch criminals.
Seed a few conversations with specific, but fictional items; set up a couple of obscure online stores selling said items so they can gain intel on who wants it; seems like something that might happen.
I think the OP is not necessarily describing a scenario where the law would swoop in after a single such operation, but rather, that this could be a tool used to gather information to be correlated against other sources.
“Red mercury” is possibly a real world example of something very close to OP’s method. It’s a non-existent material that supposedly could be used to create nuclear weapons, or dirty bombs, or extremely powerful conventional explosives - there are a number of different accounts floating around.
It has apparently been used in sting operations against terrorists, arms dealers, and smugglers. It’s origins are obscure, but it may have been invented by an intelligence agency specifically to use as bait in such operations.
The thing is, if I heard of something like that, I’d be tempted to Google it, just out of curiosity. And I’ve never been interested in making a pipe bomb. (Not least because I like still having ten fingers, ten toes, two arms and two legs and many of these idiots manage to blow off something.)
Law enforcement already uses keyword search warrants to get Google to disclose anyone who searched for a specific term. I’m not aware of any case where the police have tried to “bait” people into searching for a specific term, but it wouldn’t be a stretch.
I just googled it too, because of course I did. Nobody has come knocking on my door yet. Maybe that means they aren’t interested? Or maybe it just takes more time? Or maybe it just means that HeyHomie isn’t really a FBI agent on the DL after all?