Loonie Indeed

You might recall this post, Is that a Loonie in Your Pocket or is Someone Else Glad to See Me?, back from January. Basically, US security types got all excited about “bugged” Canadian coins. Here's a reminder of what they were saying:

Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Department of Defence. …

“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,” the report says. …

Well, several months later, we know the truth: they're nuts. 'Poppy Quarter' Behind Spy Coin Alert:

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.

But, of course, they weren't anything of the kind.

And we wonder why they can't catch bin Laden?