Posted on 12/30/2003 2:41:21 PM PST by El Conservador
WASHINGTON - The FBI (news - web sites) 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."
It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways.
"The practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that seek to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning," the FBI wrote.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the bulletin this week and verified its authenticity.
"For local law enforcement, it's just to help give them one more piece of information to raise their suspicions," said David Heyman, a terrorism expert for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It helps make sure one more bad guy doesn't get away from a traffic stop, maybe gives police a little bit more reason to follow up on this."
The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, "the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities." But it warned that when combined with suspicious behavior — such as apparent surveillance — a person with an almanac "may point to possible terrorist planning."
"I don't think anyone would consider us a harmful entity," said Kevin Seabrooke, senior editor of The World Almanac. He said the reference book includes about a dozen pages out of its 1,000 pages total listing the world's tallest buildings and bridges but includes no diagrams or architectural schematics. "It's stuff that's widely available on the Internet," he said.
The publisher for The Old Farmers Almanac said Monday terrorists would probably find statistical reference books more useful than the collections of Americana in his famous publication of weather predictions and witticisms.
"While we doubt that our editorial content would be of particular interest to people who would wish to do us harm, we will certainly cooperate to the fullest with national authorities at any level they deem appropriate," publisher John Pierce said.
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. It said this information is often accompanied by photographs and maps.
The FBI urged police to report such discoveries to the local U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force.
I love The World Almanac and the Time Almanac!!!
I've bought them every year ever since I came to the US... and now I'm a goddamn potential terrorist???
This is some ridiculous bull$#!t!!!
I have already reported you to Tom Ridge. ;-)
Nope. Only almanacs that contain "hard facts."
I was commenting to my better half about the old Russian practice of fal;sifying maps, roadsigns and almanacs in order to make it more difficult for outsiders to invade. Wonder if we'll ever get to the point that holding "too much accurate information" will become a crime.
I can't ever remember walking or driving around with an almanac, so I feel fairly certain this isn't going to affect me.
Mohammed Atta and his cronies criss-crossed this country while planning the 9/11 attacks. If there was some info that would have been useful in catching them before they acted, law enforcement should have known.
As it stands, at least one of the 9/11 plotters was stopped for a traffic violation the night before the attacks, but was released. If there had been any way for the officer who pulled the plotter over to recognize him as a terrorist, it may have saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives.
Sometimes these alerts sound funny, but who would have thought that a bunch of middle-eastern bachelors who liked to frequent strip clubs and traveled to Vegas were al Qaeda terrorists planning to destroy the WTC and Pentagon.
We need to be vigilant.
I'm usually one of the first to mock these big brother tactics, but this is just an alert to law enforcement that an almanac could be a possible flag, presumably in conjunction with some other flags, like arabic nationality, false IDs, and a suitcase of cash.
Also, should you have a situation with those elements, the almanac might be useful in ascertaining possible targets (like those in the almanac circled in red marker with "Death to all!!! Allah is great!!!!" scribbled over it.)
Minus the other more sinister markers, the presence of an almanac is more likely a bit of a "dork indicator."
You got that right. What's next, are my auto repair manuals gonna be considered terrorists tools because a terrorist can use it to find out how to wire an automobile to explode?
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