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Here is a fun fact; the US believes owning and wearing an F-91W is evidence that you're a terrorist so much so that they can place you in Guantanamo Bay without

Here is a fun fact; the US believes owning and wearing an F-91W is evidence that you're a terrorist so much so that they can place you in Guantanamo Bay without trial[0]: > In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant. This is also noted on the F-91W's Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W#Usage_in_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W#Usage_in_terrorism [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seton_Hall_reports#Detainees'_profile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seton_Hall_reports#Detainees'_...

kakacik 1mo ago
I guess Toyota Hilux drivers are next in line with similar smart rules
- m463 1mo ago
  Well America doesn't get those, so makes sense. (they did have one called "pickup")
  - olyjohn 1mo ago
    How does the Tacoma differ from the Hilux? I know there are some slight styling and engine differences for different markets, but pretty sure its still mostly a Hilux.
    - kevin_thibedeau 1mo ago
      Hilux has leaf springs and significantly higher payload capacity for technical mounts. You can uparmor a Hilux. Taco will break.
    - selectodude 1mo ago
      It's the same body with worse everything else.
echoangle 1mo ago
The wording doesn’t seem to me like owning the watch was the only evidence and that was enough to put people in Guantanamo, it sounds to me like it was a contributing factor. Still a bit crazy but I don’t think they just arrested everyone with this watch.
chrisco255 1mo ago
And yet they remain so popular, curious how an egregious claim completely contrasts with reality.
majorchord 1mo ago
> the US believes owning and wearing an F-91W is evidence that you're a terrorist No they don't, please don't spread misinformation. If this were true, the watch itself would be banned in the country and/or nobody would sell it. Your own source says the Pentagon refuted the author's claims because they did not have access to classified information, which I believe would suggest that there is more to the story than merely owning a very common watch and nothing else. Otherwise millions of innocent Americans would be in jail. There is a very, very good reason this was only "in a handful of cases" and never again.
- crims0n 1mo ago
  One of those reasons being you can walk into any Walmart across the country and walk out with one for about $22 USD.
Papazsazsa 1mo ago
It's not quite as simple as "if you have one of these you're a terrorist" of course; it's one indicator based on long-standing patterns, but never used as sole proof. AQ training/bomb-making manuals from the 1990s–2000s recommend cheap, reliable digital watches like this as timers for IEDs as they're extremely inexpensive and widely available worldwide, durable, water resistant, and easy to modify as delay timers. Often these guys would get picked up with two or more watches of the same model, for example. We recovered them in bomb-making facilities and on fighters throughout the GWOT. Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.
- teachrdan 1mo ago
  > Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them. This is like a statistics 101 question. Google says that Casio has sold over 100M F-91W's since 1989. Let's round down to an average of 2.5M a year, or 25M over the 10 peak years of the global war on terror (GWOT). You named two terrorists who wore them. Let's say that's an understatement by 200X. Some quick math shows that the percent of terrorists who wore F-91W's is 400/25000000 = 0.0016% positive rate, or conversely a 99.9984% false positive rate. Not good! Now I never actually took a statistics class, so maybe I got this question wrong. But it's obvious that using the possession of an F-91W as a sign of being a terrorist is a mistake.
  - hknceykbx 1mo ago
    Well, your argument might be valid but calculation of course has nothing remotely to do with truth. If we’re talking about the US, person has to be in the US/travel to US. That dramatically cuts down the amount from 25M. Second - the person has to be.. how do I put it, non white? Probably muslim. That also cuts it down by far. I can believe that people who fall in these two categories might have some subcultural groups. And in most of them they might just.. not wear Casio watches. It’s not like probability of wearing/not wearing Casio watches is equally likely for every person on earth. They have their target groups.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
ourmandave 1mo ago
...evidence that you're a terrorist Or more recently, to some officials, showing up at a No Kings rally.
dzonga 1mo ago
> In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant.
sandworm101 1mo ago
The western obssession with wrist watches popularized the mujahedin insult: "You have the watches, we have the time."
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

kakacik 1mo ago

I guess Toyota Hilux drivers are next in line with similar smart rules

m463 1mo ago
Well America doesn't get those, so makes sense. (they did have one called "pickup")
- olyjohn 1mo ago
  How does the Tacoma differ from the Hilux? I know there are some slight styling and engine differences for different markets, but pretty sure its still mostly a Hilux.
  - kevin_thibedeau 1mo ago
    Hilux has leaf springs and significantly higher payload capacity for technical mounts. You can uparmor a Hilux. Taco will break.
  - selectodude 1mo ago
    It's the same body with worse everything else.

echoangle 1mo ago

The wording doesn’t seem to me like owning the watch was the only evidence and that was enough to put people in Guantanamo, it sounds to me like it was a contributing factor. Still a bit crazy but I don’t think they just arrested everyone with this watch.

chrisco255 1mo ago

And yet they remain so popular, curious how an egregious claim completely contrasts with reality.

majorchord 1mo ago

> the US believes owning and wearing an F-91W is evidence that you're a terrorist No they don't, please don't spread misinformation. If this were true, the watch itself would be banned in the country and/or nobody would sell it. Your own source says the Pentagon refuted the author's claims because they did not have access to classified information, which I believe would suggest that there is more to the story than merely owning a very common watch and nothing else. Otherwise millions of innocent Americans would be in jail. There is a very, very good reason this was only "in a handful of cases" and never again.

crims0n 1mo ago
One of those reasons being you can walk into any Walmart across the country and walk out with one for about $22 USD.

Papazsazsa 1mo ago

It's not quite as simple as "if you have one of these you're a terrorist" of course; it's one indicator based on long-standing patterns, but never used as sole proof. AQ training/bomb-making manuals from the 1990s–2000s recommend cheap, reliable digital watches like this as timers for IEDs as they're extremely inexpensive and widely available worldwide, durable, water resistant, and easy to modify as delay timers. Often these guys would get picked up with two or more watches of the same model, for example. We recovered them in bomb-making facilities and on fighters throughout the GWOT. Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.

teachrdan 1mo ago
> Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them. This is like a statistics 101 question. Google says that Casio has sold over 100M F-91W's since 1989. Let's round down to an average of 2.5M a year, or 25M over the 10 peak years of the global war on terror (GWOT). You named two terrorists who wore them. Let's say that's an understatement by 200X. Some quick math shows that the percent of terrorists who wore F-91W's is 400/25000000 = 0.0016% positive rate, or conversely a 99.9984% false positive rate. Not good! Now I never actually took a statistics class, so maybe I got this question wrong. But it's obvious that using the possession of an F-91W as a sign of being a terrorist is a mistake.
- hknceykbx 1mo ago
  Well, your argument might be valid but calculation of course has nothing remotely to do with truth. If we’re talking about the US, person has to be in the US/travel to US. That dramatically cuts down the amount from 25M. Second - the person has to be.. how do I put it, non white? Probably muslim. That also cuts it down by far. I can believe that people who fall in these two categories might have some subcultural groups. And in most of them they might just.. not wear Casio watches. It’s not like probability of wearing/not wearing Casio watches is equally likely for every person on earth. They have their target groups.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]

ourmandave 1mo ago

...evidence that you're a terrorist Or more recently, to some officials, showing up at a No Kings rally.

dzonga 1mo ago

> In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant.

sandworm101 1mo ago

The western obssession with wrist watches popularized the mujahedin insult: "You have the watches, we have the time."

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]