This is, sadly, not parody.

[serinde]

FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers

Next up: alerts against encyclopedias, dictionaries, and the Book of Lists.

Comments

[mangosteen]

You hear an audible "whoosh", as the administration finally goes around the bend.

[zombywoof.livejournal.com]

(as if almanacs are the only places for this information). Next they will be stopping any "Semitic" looking men in their 20's and early 30's from the reference section at the local library ... or do they do that already?

It seems that these periodic press releases is the best way assure the public that something is being done. ROTFL (or I would be if it was not so sad ... )

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

Next they will be stopping any "Semitic" looking men in their 20's and early 30's from the reference section at the local library ... or do they do that already?

Well, it seems that "Flying While Arab" has joined "Driving While Black" in the list of mock officialdom offenses, anyways.

Though for real stomach-turning action, try this article (http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/27/02/feature3.shtml) about the TSA's apparent alternative blacklist for hassling lefty activists.

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

I know it's already been mentioned elsewhere, but I am still immensely amused by the idea that the CIA publishes what is pretty much the ultimate example of the concept.

I'm afraid my threshold for shock when it comes to the floppy shoe brigade at the White House has gotten pretty high -- this barely even registers.

[zombywoof.livejournal.com]

retch! Okay, I am sick now ...

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

I know, I know--it's only that most of the other stupidities can be represented as some sort of fig leaf to show the public that Something Is Being Done. This is too amazingly dumb even to qualify for that. (Not to mention the implication that absolutely no one in the FBI upper echelon has the common sense to put a foot down and say so.)

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Mmm, as I pointed out in another post from somebody else, I doubt the literal information in the almanac is what they're looking for.

The article mentions something about "strangely annotated" almanacs-- this implies to me that notes in the almanacs are being used to encode information. Sort of the thing where you'd send a letter saying "Uncle Bob still has a cold." and the person on the other end knows that that one phrase (surrounded by a lot of other random inconsequential chatter to disguise the one important bit) really means something entirely different.

Almanacs are easy to find and uniform-- you could tell your agents to acquire a 2004 almanac, circle certain things, and leave them somewhere (a blind drop, say). Other agents would then check the drop, find the almanac, and be able to decode the information inside. The middleman, the almanac-purchaser, wouldn't need to know anything about what was going on-- just that he was told to circle one paragraph in red, two words in blue, and underline the names of two cities somewhere.

More convoluted methods of message transmission have been used... Check out the stuff underground radio operators sent during World War II...