…Next stop: arresting people carrying books of any kind…
(From here. )
FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs
TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer
(12-29) 16:18 PST WASHINGTON (AP) –
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.
Removed most of copyrighted article - CF
And if carrying one is suspicious, isn’t giving one even more so??? Sister in law? J’accuse!
Look, mommy, that man’s reading a encyclopedia…
OH MY GOD! HE’S COMIN’ RIGHT FOR US!!!
<BLAMBLAMBLAM>
LOL
Welcome, Doktor, looks like you have a good future here.
Granny Weatherwax would be displeased. A good alamanac lasts a whole year, if the paper’s thin and no one’s ill!
Seriously, this is insane. Paranoia taken to the nth degree.
What the hell is:
How the hell do you annotate in a suspicious way?
You do it with an olive complexion, natch.
I hope you’re talking about the OP, and not the FBI’s actions.
“Be on the lookout for suspicious people carrying almanacs” != “Arrest anyone carrying books of any kind.” The FBI hasn’t ordered the arrest of anyone. They’ve merely identified circumstances that law enforcement personnel – who are already on the lookout – should consider.
Nor do the circumstances give rise to anything resembling Farenheit 451, in which books were burned because special interest groups complained about books that offended them, so society decided it was better to burn the books than to allow the conflict that they caused.
Are you suggesting that the FBI is offended by almanacs?
Let’s try to keep the Farenheit 451 comparisons to . . . I don’t know, maybe, circumstances that are comparable to Farenheit 451?
Jokes aside, how does this scenario sound…
Cop pulls over person.
For whatever reason, decides to search the vehicle.
Sees an almanac type book.
Pre-FBI note, he tosses the book back in the car, it’s not relevant.
Post-FBI note, he actually looks at the book to see if there is something interesting.
Point is that the police should take an interest in maps and almanacs that they might otherwise not. The only way to communicate this idea is to send out a memo, which is exactly what the FBI did.
As I mentioned in the other thread, how soes this scenario sound…
Cop pull over person.
Cop sees almanac in back seat.
Cop uses almanac as probable cause to search vehicle.
or how about this one:
Cop pulls over person
Cop sees Koran in back seat
Cop uses Koran as probable cause to search vehicle
So if Myrtle from Nebraska goes to Washington with a guidebook and scibbles “that nice man Mr Bush lives here” next to the White House", then goes to aforesaid resisence and takes a picture, that presumably “may point to possible terrorist planning.”
I fear quiz bowl nerds are going to be subject to even more harassment in the future.
NOT related to F. 451? Whatever the reason for banning the books in the … uh, book, the practical result was that it became dangerous to be seen with one.
As a member of a special interest group (my group doesn’t like getting killed by terrorists) I do not plan on banning any book, not even an almanac.
[aside] Anyone else get creeped out when you’re watching COPS and then your mind wanders to F. 451?[/aside]
vibrotronica, your right, we shouldn’t actually look for things terrorists might use, like maps, because cops will use that as an excuse to harrass people they don’t like.
As if cops haven’t done that for the past 100 years already.
I’d rather have a cop remember to check out a map he finds, than forget and possibly miss important information. 9/11 could have been prevented, all it takes is one person noticing strange behavior to throw their plans out the window.
So, Cheesesteak, are you saying that possession of a map or guidebook in a car should be probable cause to search the car? Further, are you saying that being on the lookout for maps, almanacs, or guidebooks would have prevented 9/11?
I don’t know. What do you think? Would that constitute an innocent use of maps and almanacs (as pointed out in the language you quoted) or have you recently suffered some sort of head trauma?
Nor does the FBI. It’s a terrible comparison because nobody is planning on banning any books. Nor is it “dangerous to be seen with one.” Nobody is going to be arrested for merely having an almanac. The FBI is just identifying yet another characteristic to be considered with all the others – in this case, a type of book that may be particularly useful to terrorists.
The hysterical shrieking in here is starting to make my ears hurt.
Um… no, and neither does the FBI. They want police to keep their eyes open when they’re already doing searches and not just ignore things like maps.
Of course not, but it comes down to noticing something that is out of place.
You’re blowing the import of this memo wildly out of proportion. It’s a note to police officers remind them to notice maps when they’re doing their job. Why is this a big deal?
Actually, this is a serious development and people are correct to be extremely concerned.
First, in the U.S. – unless you give permission – the police must have probable cause to search your car. In other words, they have to have actual evidence that would cause a reasonable person to believe that a crime has been or will be committed and that the car being searched contains such evidence. Even this does not give the police carte blanche to search anything and anywhere. Rather, they can only search things likely to yield relevant evidence.
For example, if a cop in the U.S. pulls you over and smells pot in your car, he can search your car for pot. He cannot, incident to that search, seize your check book to determine if you’ve been writing bad checks.
This has rule has direct implications for the FBI’s memo – in the vast majority of non-consensual searches, the police would simply not have the authority to look in your almanac.
The problem is, of course, that many police will use this memo to establish probable cause. “They’ve got an almanac/map. therefore, I’ve got probable cause to suspect terrorism.” This is grossly intrusive and worse, stupid.
The World Almanac, per Barnes and Noble, is there 98th best selling book, and that’s just one almanac, i.e., they’re all over the place. Don’t even get me started about how many people have maps, especially in their cars. :rolleyes:
The World Almanac also has in excess of 1000 pages. So the cop is supposed to make you wait while he leafs through the thing looking for suspicious annotations?
I also question how stupid a terrorist would have to be to tote around the entire World Almanac which contains probably one line relevant to whatever it is he wants to target. It is one thing to say that terrorists use almanacs to pick targets and gather information. It is another to say that they carry them around all the time like day planners. I mean come on, after determining what the third-biggest dam is, do you really need to bring all 1000 pages with you when checking it out? Are you suddenly going to need to know the figure for Iowa’s annual corn production or what? I’m willing to bet that Jeopardy contestants are a hundred times more likely to actually carry around an almanac than any terrorist.
The bottom line is that this is yet another intrusive and poorly thought out security effort. It is every thinking person’s duty to make sure that the U.S. government’s efforts to fight terrorism are both effective and intrude on civil liberties to the least extent possible. Government bureacrats are just as likely to do something stupid as anyone else. The fact that they perpetrate their stupidities in the name of “security” should not make them immune to criticism.
Making carrying a “suspicious” book or map probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed is extremely chilling. It’s not the kind of society any of us want to live in. Let’s not go that way.
Let’s not get started on what the cops will make of a mape of a place that doesn’t exist. Dare I say…polyhedral dice?
Map. I do not know what a “mape” is, and I am certainly not going to the almanac to find out.