WASHINGTON - Can the coins jingling in your pocket trace your movements? The Defense Department is warning its American contractor employees about a new espionage threat seemingly straight from Hollywood: It discovered Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden inside.

In a U.S. government report, it said the mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

The U.S. report doesn't suggest who might be tracking American defense contractors or why. It also doesn't describe how the Pentagon discovered the ruse, how the transmitters might function or even which Canadian currency contained them.

Further details were secret, according to the U.S. Defense Security Service, which issued the warning to the Pentagon's classified contractors. The government insists the incidents happened, and the risk was genuine.

"What's in the report is true," said Martha Deutscher, a spokeswoman for the security service. "This is indeed a sanitized version, which leaves a lot of questions."

Top suspects, according to intelligence and technology experts: China, Russia or even France — all said to actively run espionage operations inside Canada with enough sophistication to produce such technology.

LINK

Eisenhower dollars are US coins. They aren't generally seen in circulation and they're rather large.

I thought it said Canadian coins?

exaggeration/bullshit

Canadian spy coin case baffles observers
Last Updated: Thursday, January 11, 2007 | 12:21 PM ET
CBC News
A U.S. defence report claiming Canadian coins were used as surveillance devices has raised security concerns and a few eyebrows since it became public knowledge this week.

The report, entitled Technology Collection Trends in the U.S. Defence Industry, listed the use of Canadian currency in an appendix on recent cases.

A U.S. security report says Canadian coins with tiny transmitters have turned up and could be used to track defence industry personnel.
(CBC) "On at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006, cleared defence contractors' employees travelling through Canada have discovered radio frequency transmitters embedded in Canadian coins placed on their persons," reads the brief explanation in the U.S. Defence Security Service report.

The story of the coins was little more than an appendix in the recently declassified report until a U.S. newspaper picked it up.

Jeff Richelson, a researcher and author of books about the CIA, was skeptical of the incident, saying coins would be a poor choice as a tracking device because of their high turnover rate.

"It wouldn't seem to be the best place to put something like that; you'd want to put it in something that wouldn't be left behind or spent," said Richelson.

"It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense."

An unnamed U.S. official also told the Globe and Mail the incidents have been blown out of proportion, saying odd-looking Canadian coins triggered suspicions but that the fears were groundless.

But the U.S. Defence Security Service, which works with defence contractors to protect them from espionage, defended its findings.

"What's in the report is true," said Martha Deutscher, a spokeswoman for the security service, who admitted a classified version of the report has more details. "This is indeed a sanitized version, which leaves a lot of questions."

The report doesn't detail who might be tracking the defence contractors, how the ruse was discovered or any detail about how the transmitters functioned.

CSIS not aware of incidents
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service said it knew nothing of the incidents.

"This issue has just come to our attention," CSIS spokeswoman Barbara Campion told CBC News Online. "At this point, we don't know of any basis for these claims.

"Canadian agencies, including CSIS, work closely with their U.S. counterparts to address potential threats. If further action is required on this issue, we will follow up with U.S. counterparts," she said.

A radio frequency identification device (RFID) can be embedded in anything from humans to clothing to credit cards and can emit a signal on its own or activate and send a signal in response to radio waves.

A RFID tag or chip small enough to hide in a coin would likely not have its own power source and would likely have a limited range, making its use as a tracking tool questionable.

SOURCE

We tried to hide WMDs in them, but the Iraqis kept stealing them by asking for change.

WASHINGTON - An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a U.S. Defense Department false espionage warning earlier this year about mysterious coin-like objects with radio frequency transmitters, The Associated Press has learned.

The harmless "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.


Solved

It's a symbol to honour our veterans:

The Flower of Remembrance

An American teacher, Moina Michael, while working at the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries’ headquarters in New York City in November 1918, read John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields”. She immediately made “a personal pledge to keep the faith and vowed always to wear a red
poppy of Flanders Fields as a sign of remembrance and as an emblem for keeping the faith with
all who died".

Two years later, during a 1920 visit to the United States, a French woman, Madame Guerin, learned of the custom. On her return to France, she decided to use handmade Poppies to raise money for the destitute children in war-torn areas of the country. Following the example of Madame Guerin, the Great War Veterans’ Association in Canada (the predecessor of The Royal Canadian Legion) officially adopted the Poppy as its Flower of Remembrance on 5 July 1921.

Thanks to the millions of Canadians who wear the Legion’s lapel Poppy each November, the little red plant has never died. And neither have Canadian’s memories for 117,000 of their countrymen who died in battle.

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Quote:

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Now, decades later, Canadians stand united in their Remembrance as they recognize and honour the selfless acts of our troops from all wars. We realize that it is because of our war veterans that we exist as a proud and free nation.

Today, when people from all parts of Canada and from all walks of life join together in their pledge to never forget, they choose to display this collective reminiscence by wearing a Poppy. They stand united as Canadians sharing a common history of sacrifice and commitment.

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