For the US guys here, the equivalent would be the FBI tracking down a few guys back from Afghanistan, monitoring who they talk to, see that they are curious about how to make bombs, how to encrypt your communications, etc, and write an article saying "oh look, the FBI thinkgs that buying sugar at the supermarket is suspicious", because among 1000 other evidence, the FBI at some point noted that "individual bought ingredients to a make a bomb and bought 25kg of sugar".