If you wear the Casio F-91W watch, a cheap, widely available Casio watch, the US Government thinks you might be a terrorist.


Seriously! It's been known for quite a while now too. There's a whole list of Guantanomo Bay detainees who wore the watch, an old Washington Post article that said terrorists can use the watch to create time bombs and leaked Wikileaks documents linking the watch to al-Qaeda:

The possession of a Casio F-91W model watch and the silver-color version of this model, the A159W, is an indicator of al-Qaeda training in the manufacture of IEDs. The Casio was known to be given to the students at al-Qaeda bomb-making training courses in Afghanistan, at which the students received instruction in the preparation of timing devices using the watch.


I'm typically not one to judge our military strategy or intelligence's intelligence but the F-91W is an incredibly common watch that many people have worn over the years. It's like saying drinking Coke, wearing Nikes or sniffling into Kleenexes is a sign of being a terrorist. Come on. We have to have better identifiers and reasons than a freaking 10 dollar watch. [The Guardian via BoingBoing]

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Image Credit: Wikipedia