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Tim Nausler with the Michigan State Police bomb squad says this has all the tell tale signs of using cell phones to detonate bombs. He says you need two phones to detonate a bomb one to be with the explosive and the other to make the call to that phone. In some instances he says you can detonate with one phone using the alarm clock function.
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This sounds pretty weak to me. By this logic, anyone buying two phones (for whatever reason) could be displaying tell tale signs of being a cell phone bomber. The last sentence is broad enough that it basically makes anyone that purchases a single cell phone a potential cell phone bomber, thanks to the alarm function.
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The men have been "cooperative, upfront, not hiding" anything according to police. They also told officers they get stopped frequently and say they buy the phones for $20 and sell them elsewhere for $38. They sell them without the packaging or charger.
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This seems very believable to me. I am not too deeply learned in economics, but buying items for less and selling for a profit seems like a pretty basic goal of a successful economic venture.
To address the question of whether there is racial profiling going on, I would say there probably is, even if it is not intentional. We are immersed in a society in which a large majority (in my opinion) share a "us vs them" mentality, and "them" consists of anyone that appears to be Middle Eastern, and thus potentially a terrorist. I think it has reached the point where this labeling is not even necessarily conscious, but instead a result of having the mass media drone on to us daily about the fight against the Middle East, terrorism, and our nation constantly being at risk of terrorist attack.