"Do you go camping or play paintball?" and 47 other questions from the FBI's secret terrorist-detection questionnaire

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Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/02/14/do-you-go-camping-or-play-pa.html

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What, no interactive quiz?? I was quite looking forward to seeing how I scored… :confused:

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I’ve even camped out to play paintball over two days before. Holy shit - it’s me, isn’t it? I’m the terrorist! I didn’t know! I didn’t know!

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Radicalization is like honeymooning in national parks.

It’s fucking in tents.

Oooo, I’m using that over V-day dinner tonight since we did in fact honeymoon in national parks. Wait, my wife and I have also both played paintball. Man, those terrorists are some sly recruiters.

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The terrorist is in the building! Wait, it’s me! GAAAAAHH!!!111

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Having just spent the last twenty minutes quizzing Mrs. Cynical and giving my own responses, the examples in the OP aren’t even the most egregious.

“Does the subject own a passport?” is genuinely one of the questions on the list. So, what??Expressing a desire to travel makes one suspic…

Oh. It’s an American intelligence agency. Ah. Carry on.

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Worse, the crossword is tough.

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What is with paintball anyway? Why does laser tag get no respect - I’ve played that several times.

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The same questions can mostly be used to classify the FBI themselves. The real question is whether or not you put them in a privileged position, or if you hold them and other government groups to the same standards - or indeed have any standards of your own.

Compiling a “list” is a game that anybody can play.

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Having the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System standing in the background and snickering about the lack of technical sophistication probably doesn’t help.

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Well “Has the subject committed a terrorist attack?” seems like a pretty incisive one.

“Has the subject exhibited unusual/suspicious financial patterns? Unexplained increase/decrease in funds; Complex financial transactions; Money received from overseas; Maxing credit cards; Other.” probably won’t catch too many terrorists; but could be quite useful if the FBI were willing to go have a look at the financial services industry.

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You are approached by a frenzied Vault scientist, who yells, “I’m going to put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonation chamber!” What’s your response?

  1. “But doctor, wouldn’t that cause a parabolic destabilization of the fission singularity?”
  2. “Yeah? Up yours too, buddy!”
  3. Say nothing, grab a nearby pipe and hit the scientist in the head to knock him out. For all you knew, he was planning to blow up the vault.
  4. Say nothing, but slip away before the scientist can continue his rant.
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  1. MMMM… Kinky…
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So… camping. That automatically makes all Boy Scouts terrorists, mmmkay?

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No, it turns out the real terrorists were the friends we made along the way!

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 2. Definitely 2.

ETA: What the fuck, Discourse, quit changing my answers!

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Sounds like a cross-disciplinary effort between social scientists who can’t do statistics and statisticians who know nothing of the social sciences.

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Question #49: Are you white? (Automatically invalidates the answers to the 48 other questions)

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