Barack Obama, Gitmo, and the Casio Watch


An internet prankster and hacker known on LJ as tongodeon says,

For the last year or two, a friend and I have been giving our friends Casio F-91w wristwatches. They are cheap, reliable, and a reason why 28 prisoners have been held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo. In late October I attended a rally in Reno, NV and gave an F-91w and letter to Barack Obama via a senior staffer on the national campaign team. Today Barack Obama issued an executive order closing Guantanamo. The wire photos don't show him wearing my watch, but I still feel a little vindicated today.

Here's his post about the affair, and here's a snip from his letter to President Barack Obama (OMG that feels awesome to blog for the first time):

I've been volunteering for your campaign because of this watch, the Casio model F-91w. These watches cost $7.50 in quantity. They are cheap, waterproof, and reliable. They are common throughout the developing world. And they have been listed by the Department of Defense as a reason for the continued extrajudicial detention of the 28 Guantanamo detainees listed on the following page.

In 1995, US intelligence recovered a document in Manila by Ramzi Yousef describing how to use this watch as the timing device for a bomb. Ahmed Ressam, the "millennial bomber" was captured with two Casio F91Ws. As a result, when Pakistani police and the Northern Alliance turned over alleged Taliban members to the military, their ordinary watches were identified as evidence that they were terrorists.