New FBI bulletin: Look for almanacs

By The Associated Press and The Washington Post

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WASHINGTON — The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books could be used for terrorist planning.

An FBI intelligence bulletin sent to about 18,000 law-enforcement agencies last week warned that "terrorist operatives may rely on almanacs to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning" because they include detailed information on bridges, tunnels and other U.S. landmarks, officials said.

Although noting that "the use of almanacs or maps may be the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities," the bulletin urged police to watch for suspects carrying almanacs, especially if they include suspicious notations or marks, because "the practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations."

"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 warning came as a surprise to publishers of almanacs, which range from statistical tomes listing the tallest buildings and the longest bridges to folksy journals including planetary charts and apple-pie recipes.

"Our almanac is about as far away as you can get from terrorism and about as close as you can get to what you would think of as Americana," said Peter Geiger, editor of the Farmers' Almanac, a 185-year-old compendium of weather predictions, cleaning tips and other advice. "It takes people away from all the hype and terrorism and scaring that's going on."

The bulletin also prompted objections from civil-liberties advocates, who argued that the warning appears to encourage police to arrest or interrogate people based on their reading habits.

"Founding father Benjamin Franklin probably never imagined that the almanac he created would be the subject of an FBI terrorism bulletin," said Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Franklin certainly foresaw the danger of government overreaching during a time of crisis. We hope that both the almanac and the Constitution will survive intact."

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said the bulletin "is criminalizing the use of the most basic reference resources, which people have a legitimate reason to have. ... This is the kind of thing that leads to profiling."

One of the most-popular mainstream publications, the World Almanac, includes a dozen pages listing the tallest buildings, longest bridges and other notable landmarks in the United States and the world.

But senior editor Kevin Seabrooke said the book does not include specific locations, architectural schematics or other details that might be useful for terrorists planning an attack.

"We're talking about information that's readily available from many other sources," Seabrooke said. "The idea of using it for terrorism never even occurred to me. They certainly didn't need the Almanac to locate the twin towers."

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company