[El Conservador]

WTF???

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!!!

[Smogger]

I've bought them every year ever since I came to the US... and now I'm a goddamn potential terrorist???

I have already reported you to Tom Ridge. ;-)

[Fixit]

[My2Cents]

For crying out loud! By this reasoning, anyone who has access to the Internet is a possible terrorist!

[steve-b]

Failure to run their public alerts through a basic sanity check will lead to a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" effect.

[browardchad]

I hate to introduce common sense into this fascinating discussion, but a) the almanac memo was not for public consumption. The AP got a copy somehow and they've been making hay with it for at least a couple of days. And b) one can logically assume that the FBI has noted that suspected terrorists have been reported to be carrying almanacs in several reports, thus warranting report of a pattern of behavior, like, say, having multiple ID cards or wearing a bomb belt.

I can't ever remember walking or driving around with an almanac, so I feel fairly certain this isn't going to affect me.

[RightWhale]

It would be important to know which Almanac. One would just be a reference to facts one doesn't need anyway, the other would be the secret code decoder.

[MediaMole]

Give ME a break. They are not saying that anyone with an almanac is a terrorist. The ARE saying that terrorists may be using almanacs in their planning for attacks. If they are, then it is a useful piece of information for law enforcement.

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.

[darth]

This trick of spycraft has been around since Gutenberg. You have all of your agents (Al Quaeda weenies in this case) buy a common book. You transmit sets of numbers; for example, via a website. The first number is the page number; the second number is the Nth word. This method provides an easy, unbreakable code until the FBI notices that a bunch of suspects all carry the Almanac. Quit making fun of the FBI; they are a lot smarter than you think.

[Mikey]

"This is some ridiculous bull$#!t!!!"

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?