Americans, we're watching you!

Dear American friends... Be afraid! Be very very afraid!!! This is a spy coin -- a super-hi-tech Canadian quarter which Canadian soldiers and airmen will smuggle into US government and armed forces meeting rooms to learn your military secrets and prepare for the invasion!

At least that was the rumour when these coins -- really commemorating the sacrifices of Canadian lives in foreign wars -- first appeared about four years ago.

The funny thing is, the US Department of Defense took the story seriously. We know this from classified documents recently obtained by AP under the Freedom of Information Act.

Pentagon officials question whether they should warn military officers in the U.S. Northern Command, who regularly met Canadian counterparts about classified subjects inside bug-free government meeting rooms known as secure compartmentalized information facilities, or "SKIFs". (If it didn't have an acronym it wouldn't be in the Pentagon, eh.)

"Isn't the Canadian piece something that should be briefed to Northcom since the Canadians sit in their SKIFs?" asked the "deputy director for counterintelligence oversight", in emails marked "Secret/NoForn."
"Good point," replied the Pentagon's acting director for counterintelligence. "It is possible that DSS (the U.S. Defence Security Service) sent their report to Northcom. Then again, I don't think it is an issue of the Canadians being the bad guys, but then again, who knows."

Indeed. Who knows? Such is the paranoia of the world's most powerful nation.