the FBI

[January 7th, 2004] Bad enough that bleary-eyed Americans spent New Year's Eve glancing over their shoulders, looking out for hijacked AeroMexico flights. Thanks to an alert from the FBI, they also shivered with fear at that most intellectually mundane of holiday stocking stuffers, the ALMANAC! Yes, the almanac--that hoary, old-fashioned compendium of facts, stats and flags of the world--was bull's-eyed by G-Men, worried that terrorists could use the handy volumes to plan catastrophic assaults on the United States.

A Christmas Eve bulletin from the FBI warned 18,000 law-enforcement agencies to keep their eyes open for almanacs--particularly those "annotated in suspicious ways." (The FBI didn't elaborate on the chaos likely to ensue when al Qaeda figures out the Dewey decimal system--let alone Google!)

The warning sparked one Portland patriot into action. Eric Berg, a 36-year-old soccer fan (see Mailbox, page 4), marched into Portland's downtown FBI office on Jan. 2, intent on doing his patriotic duty--he wanted to turn in his almanacs. And this is a man who loves almanacs. "Some people call me the Human Search Engine," says Berg, who has been unable to translate his skills into gainful employment. "Others, the Man of Knowledge."

But it turned out the feds weren't as keen to seize Berg's dangerous portable information banks as might have been expected. After Berg stood in the FBI's lobby for some 15 minutes--holding an almanac in plain sight--three special agents roguishly refused his would-be contribution to the cause. "It must be FBI policy not to crack a smile," Berg notes. The Portland man kept his beloved almanac but says he may take further action with his hastily formed group Americans Against Terror and Knowledge.