
List of Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of possessing Casio watches - dc2k08
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees_accused_of_possessing_Casio_watches
======
chaosmachine
It's the #22 best selling watch on Amazon.

[http://www.amazon.com/Casio-F91W-1-Classic-Black-
Digital/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Casio-F91W-1-Classic-Black-
Digital/dp/B000GAWSDG)

------
InclinedPlane
I clicked through to the wikipedia entry for the first 10 detainees, in no
case is possession of this particular model of Casio watch the only or even
primary point of evidence in support of their detention. Some choice bits from
various entries for people on this list:

 _The detainee met with and received money from Usama Bin Laden.

The detainee fought on the front lines for approximately nine months and fired
his weapon at coalition forces.

Detainee stated he offered to help the Taliban.

The detainee resided in Taliban safehouses during his travel to and within
Afghanistan._

This is certainly a curious thing, but without further info and context I have
no basis to make a judgment one way or the other whether possession of this
particular model of watch while in Afghanistan/Pakistan is sufficiently
unusual to be used as a point of evidence in proving a close affiliation with
al qaeda/the taliban. Unfortunately, this wiki page does absolutely nothing to
further that investigation, other than to highlight something seemingly odd.

~~~
david927
_point of evidence_

No, those are _unsubstantiated claims_ , not evidence. The people who made
those claims were compensated for 88% of detainees.

How many people, for money, would claim that you, InclinedPlane, met with and
received money from Usama Bin Laden? It only would take one.

If there's evidence, let's have trials.

------
teamonkey
The list is surprisingly long. Obviously detaining someone simply because they
wear the cheapest mass-market watch out there is ridiculous, but could it be
statistically unusual?

------
bonsaitree
It's a kiss-simple, cheap, innocuous (until recently) timing, team
coordination, and secondary intelligence gathering mechanism (via time-indexed
observation logs of potential target activities).

These models are probably available for cash (at or below cost) through a
plethora of street-side vendors, pawn shops, and cheap electronics retailers
in any metropolitan area.

In principle, this is no different than "burner" cell phones historically used
by drug dealers (and featured prominently in season 3 of The Wire).

I can envision more well-funded groups using Flip cameras.

------
jacquesm
I think I have some family members that should go to Guantanamo then.

Also, almost any watch or clock could be modified to become a timing mechanism
for an explosive device, this one really is no exception.

------
Jun8
Dammit - I was thinking of buying these!

Muddy application of Bayes' rule here: From what I understand, they (with a
capital T) determined P(watch | terrorist) to be a high probability; however,
this doesn't necessarily mean that P(terrorist | watch) is also high.

------
malkia
What's next - drive an Isuzu?

