By Brad Friedman on 1/20/2007, 12:05pm PT  

Last week we ran a story from AP about which we (pardon the pun) could make neither heads nor tails of. It concerned a report from the Dept. of Defense warning American contractors in Canada to be on the lookout for coins containing tiny radio transmitters --- presumably to track the locations of those contractors.

At the time, additional details from DoD were "classified". Perhaps now we find out why. It was all bullshit. From AP on Friday...

Reversing itself, the Defense Department says an espionage report it produced that warned about Canadian coins with tiny radio-frequency transmitters was not true.

The Defense Security Service said it never could substantiate its own published claims about the mysterious coins. It has begun an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page report about espionage concerns.
...
Experts said such tiny transmitters almost certainly would have limited range to communicate with sensors no more than a few feet away, such as ones hidden inside a doorway. The metal coins also would interfere with any signals emitted, they said.

Experts also warned that hiding tracking technology inside coins would be fraught with risks because the spy's target might inadvertently give away the coin or spend it.
...
The service initially maintained that its report on the spy coins was accurate but said further details about the spy coins were classified.

Apparently these guys are having trouble separating the phony intelligence from the phony intelligence. Luckily, Judith Miller wasn't around to report it on the front page of the New York Times, else we might have had American troops marching into Saskatchewan by now.

United we stand.

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