The Cellar - Are you, or have you ever been, a member of Al Quaeda?

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Are you, or have you ever been, a member of Al Quaeda?

Apparently some of the key evidence against those accused of such is....*drumroll* owning one of these:

http://www.findwatches.co.uk/images/..._F-91W-1XY.jpg

Quote:

Leaked files reportedly reveal a certain Casio watch was viewed with suspicion by US officials as a possible sign of terrorist links. So how did the humble F-91W find itself in such a position?

They retail for as little as £7 ($12), are water resistant and have a battery life of approximately seven years. Just three things that have helped make the Casio F-91W a global bestseller.

Now this unassuming, black, plastic, digital timepiece has found itself in the news for a different reason. Leaked US documents reportedly advised interrogators at Guantanamo Bay that possession of the F-91W could be a link to bombing by al-Qaeda.

The Guardian, which obtained the leaked files, reports that wearing one has been a contributing factor to the continued detention of some prisoners, with more than 50 detainee reports referring to the watch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13194733

Oh dear. I have a long history of buying Casio watches, and there may have been a meeting I attended in college, but it was just the once and I never went back. I though they were a gardening club.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 727837)

Quote:

They retail for as little as £7 ($12), are water resistant ...

Those devils, they'll still be able to tell time while they're being waterboarded.

"HA! I've only been under for 45 seconds. I can hold out longer than that."

Well, there was this one time at band camp.....

I stayed in a Holiday Inn last night....

Well, then clearly you are an enemy of freedom.

I've tried to figure out how much of a story this is, because it lends itself to headline sensationalism. Sometimes a piece of information just gets banged around a little bit in order to turn it into something that seems more exciting than it is.

Not to single her out in this speculation, the key word in Dana's post is "key". Is it really considered key evidence?

The stories on this matter avoid that word, and just put enough information out there to allow us to wonder: Was that all they needed? Did they really just round up anyone wearing this watch?

But if you know this specific watch is given out in bomb-making training camps, noticing which model watch a suspect is wearing is just good investigative work.

I guess if it were me, I would ask the suspect, "Nice watch, where did you get it?" and his response would also be useful information.

Not that he's gonna say "my teacher gave it to me in bomb making class." But if he pauses, or evades, or makes up some crappy lie, that's interesting too.

"He says he's a goat herder in the mountains, but he has a Casio F-91W. He says he uses it to know when to bring the goats in, but he says he's had it for two years, and it has not a single scratch on it."

The BBC story notes that the watch is cheap and popular, but we still lack the information to know whether owning one is statistically interesting. Popular worldwide, yes, but how about amongst Afghani farmers? The BBC notes that you can even order them online -- but that is probably not how they get into the hands of people on the Pakistani border.

So it's all like one of those math(s) questions, where the right answer is "we don't have enough information to know."