According to
an article appearing on AP on Monday, people carrying almanacs now are considered potential terrorists.
According to
an article appearing on AP on Monday, people carrying almanacs now are considered potential terrorists.
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."
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.
When the FBI starts issuing bulletins like this one, it really makes me wonder whether the people charged with managing the so-called "war on terror" have any active brain cells at all. There are so many potential uses for almanacs that a blanket alert such as this can serve no useful purpose. How many millions of almanacs are sold in the U.S. each year? And is the information provided in almanacs really ythat useful to potential terrorists? I mean, I realize that
the "Farmer's Almanac" includes lists of the "best days" to engage in various types of activities. For example, according to the "Farmer's Almanac", December 1, 2, 17, 18, 21, 22, and 25-29 are the best days to cut your hair, and December 1, 2, and 21-29 are the best days to castrate farm animals. But to my knowledge, the Almanac includes no categories such as "the best day to carry out a suicide bombing".
Does everyone who happens to carry an almanac around in their car, or have one in their home, now have to worry about being harassed by overzealous law enforcement agents? More importantly, does this kind of an alert actually do anything concrete to make anyone safer from potential acts of terrorism?