A re-creation of what this magnet might look like on a fridge (Photo illustration: Andrew Beaujon)

Leon MacMullen has been carrying the darn magnet around for years. It was on a file cabinet when he worked for Monday Properties, it came with him when he moved to Allbritton Communications to be its facilities manager, and after Osama bin Laden was killed this week, he brought it to the attention of TBD editors.

To hear MacMullen tell it, his sister, at one point an employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, reported that her employer handed out the magnets, and indeed the object looks legit: It's got that goofy "Usama" spelling government agencies seem to favor, the amount of the award is correct, and the phone number is the FBI's.

The FBI, though, did not recognize the magnet.

The FBI's Office of Public Affairs, which, perhaps appropriately, uses purple Comic Sans typeface in its communications with reporters who contact it about refrigerator magnets, says "The FBI believes that this magnet was the creation of some entrepreneur and definitely not from us. It was never part of the Most Wanted Terrorist program."

"It's not like it's an unlisted number," says an FBI spokesperson who, kind of to my surprise, called me back when I asked a couple of follow-up questions about this matter: Does the FBI mind entrepreneurs publicizing its number? And OK, it didn't make this fridge adornment, but does it ever use unusual methods to publicize the residents of the Most Wanted list?

"Unusual" is the wrong word, says the spokesperson. "Unique" is more like it. The agency is working with the National Enquirer on a 10-part series about the Most Wanted program, she says. "That is unique for the FBI to be using alternative media types or unique media types."

Other unique FBI outreach initiatives:

• In 1999, the agency publicized the Most Wanted list through a series of Dick Tracy strips.

• Recently, its Boston field office placed ads in a plastic surgery magazine to help it try to find Catherine Elizabeth Greig, the girlfriend of MW list denizen James J. Bulger. The G-people had come across intel that Grieg had sought rhinoplasty and breast enhancement surgeries. "She seems to be fond of those types of procedures," says the spokesperson.

• "We’ve worked with USA Swimming to put something in their newsletter," the spokesperson says. "We’ve worked with Kampgrounds of America." The feds have used TV: America's Most Wanted, obviously, but also Without a Trace and Oprah. "We caught a number of people through that," the spokesperson says of the latter.

One of TBD's lawyers says that wanted posters make for an interesting case, rights-wise: As a government document it is in the public domain, but a commercial use means the person who took the photograph may have a claim. Another interesting facet to reproducing a wanted poster: the person depicted's right of publicity. "Using their face in a wanted poster or in a news report is not for commercial purposes and is ok," this lawyer writes in an email. "Selling magnets with someone's face could theoretically amount to a commercial use for which permission is needed. Not that the wanted person will surface just to complain about it. But, if they are caught, and someday find themselves with a bunch of time with nothing else to do, you never know."

A quick spin around the Internet turns up many fridge doors' worth of Osama-wanted-poster magnets and decorative buttons.

I asked Vistaprint, one of the country's best-known Internet-facing printing outfits (full disclosure: I used Vistaprint for a baby announcement 6.75 years ago), whether it had controls in place to make sure that no one reproduces posters to which they have no right of publicity. After several emails and phone calls, a Vistaprint  representative told me via email, "After discussing internally, I can say...we do have internal processes but we do not discuss those processes publicly."

Vistaprint doesn't need to worry about the FBI. It likes getting the word out.  "It’s very rare now that you will find the actual hard copy paper versions of posters at a post office these days," says the FBI spokesperson. "You’ve got to go where the people are looking."

And as reports of the al-Qaida leader's soda-purchasing habits filter out, maybe fridges wouldn't be such a crazy place to start.