FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | December 29, 2003

[John Jorsett]

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists may use almanacs "to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning."

[John Jorsett]

And be particularly wary of the ones with a thesaurus.

[JennysCool]

I've seen some pretty suspicious-looking Old Farmers around here, come to think of it.

[newheart]

Be even more suspicious of those entitled 'Poor Mohammed's Almanac'.

[alnick]

I don't think I'll worry too much about old Farmer Brown carrying an almanac. Someone who looks like he could be named Mohammad on the other hand...

[MedicalMess]

What about road maps and theme park info brochures? Shouldn't we have road blocks put up to search all vehicles for these items. It's getting to bizarre.

[DonQ]

Unfortunately, the week before New Year's is probably the most active time for selling or reading the new editions of the various almanacs. Odd that it's almanacs and not, say, local guidebooks.

There was a Sherlock Holmes story that began with trying to figure out a code based on an almanac and after a lot of frustration Holmes figured out that though it was just after New Year's, the message was based on the previous year's edition.

[billorites]

"And be particularly wary of the ones with a thesaurus."

What's another word for thesaurus?

[bikerman]

LOL!

[Blue Screen of Death]

A thesaurus? What kind of dinosaur is that?

[Blood of Tyrants]

I hear it has a mean anthrax soup recipe in it. The IED (improvised explosive devices) section isn't too shabby either.

[Blood of Tyrants]

http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=Thesaurus

[waterstraat]

I am getting sick of this, closing Hoover Dam, closing the Washington monument, and now reporting to the police people who have almanacs.

Just close the borders, stop immigration, and deport all the illegals until all this settles down.

[GaltMeister]

Or horror of horrors, a full set of real paper bound encyclopedia's.

** insert theme from Twilight Zone here **

[vox humana]

The FBI said information typically found in almanacs that could be useful for terrorists includes profiles of cities and states and information about waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings and landmarks.

Gotta love those FBI guys... they are so helpful.

I'm sure terrorists everywhere will appreciate this advice.

[steveo]

That's nothin'. They should be on the look out for:
Pocket Ref
by Thomas J. Glover

[sandydipper]

Oh never mind the foriegn nationals taking flight lessons in 767's - landing?? no we don't need any of that - just take off plez.

[kimmie7]

Heaven help some local Gomer Pylesque old coot with an almanc in the back pocket of his coveralls, smoking a cigarette and driving his SUV to the Southern States to buy fertilizer. Poor Grandad wakes up at Gitmo with Ali as a room-mate....

[demlosers]

thesaurus? What kind of dinosaur is that?

[CherylBower]

Another name for thesaurus is "Shift F7".

[Lady Jag]

Buy stock in almanacs? Not if it's NYT. I can see why it'd be handy, though.