Three Middle Eastern Men Found With 1000 Cell Phones, Terrorist plot?
 

Interestingly enough is this ""profiling" by society at large? In my mind, yes, because would anyone give a second thought to a set of white people making the same purchases?

Terrorist plot or just ingenious entrepeneurs taking advantage of a big box store that beats out wholesalers?

I think that these people were just business minded looking to buy low and sell high. It's not different than when I was a kid and bought boxes of candy at Costco and brought them to school to sell to the kids.

Illegal resale of phones: yeah, probably.
Terrorist detonators: no way, Jose.
This is the part of the article that really doesn't fit with the facts.
1) Everyone knew who bought the phones. If you're going to use phones for detonators, you need cloned numbers that have been aquired on the 'black market' (or from a dishonest kid and a cell phone kiosk in the mall).
2) Of course you need two phones for a phone detyonated bomb. That's like saying in order to contact someone over a long distance needs at least two phones. Someone is trying to sound like and expert, but is sounding more like Captian Obvious.
3) Fearmongering much? If arabs are doing anything that can loosely be tied by a psudo-expert or news agency to some sort of hypothetical terrorist act, then we are expected to go into a frenzy. The thing is, it's not 2002 anymore. Those who try to use fear on the news are seeing their credibility dwindle towards that of a tabloid journalist or republican president.

if they paid cash, they may not have been able to track them soon enough to stop them, however I to feel they are not terrorist, I am happy that they were picked up though, anyone avoiding a security catch should be picked up, questioned, and released if they are doing nothing wrong.

As for the profiling, I’d hope this watchful guy would have turned in anyone buying massive amounts of cell phones, but somehow I think it was partly due to the race.

Erm, I think the three phone limit is a Wal-Mart policy, not a law. If they WERE just going to resell them, I don't think they were in violation of any laws, state or federal, that I'm aware of.

Also, you don't need cloned numbers to detonate bombs with cell phones. It even also goes on to say that in some cases you can detonate them with a single phone (not a pair). will, wake up man... you're off your game this morning ;-)

At any rate, TracFone (and other prepaid) is all cash with no contact info needed to activate the phone, so it'd fit pretty well.

What I think is maybe not so reasonable is traveling state to state if it's for resale. They are making $18/phone? How much does gas cost to drive around to stores in WI, then drive to MI and drive around to different stores? It's not cheap, especially in a van. A van they paid to rent, no less. Yes, the math says $18 * 1000 phones equals $18,000, but I'm not sure if that's really sensible. I wonder how long it took them to get 1000 phones, what they're overhead is and then they split it three ways? Hmmm...

Aye. There's no need for anything special. The numbers aren't handed out until the phone is registered which means nothing but punching a few buttons. It can be completely anonymous. The only thing I'd worry about is adding another level of security so wrong numbers don't set off the bomb ahead of time. One of our employees used these things for quite a while and he was always getting wrong numbers, often in wrong languages. :) I assume they have high phone-number-churn.

I'm not so quick to dismiss this. I mean, who would shell out twice as much for a phone that they could get at Walmart? It's not like that's some remote shopping experience. These phones are also sold in truck stops, other major retailers, and sometimes grocery stores. That part just doesn't make sense to me.

To the question of whether folks would notice white guys making such a purchase, I damned well hope so. There's plenty of home-grown crazies that know just enough to hurt a bunch of people.

And to the first indictment, as the article says, you don't have to register a name with tracfone, and the purchases were made with cash. It would take some serious effort to find out who made the purchases, had the clerk not made the call.

This may turn out to be a case of fear-mongering. God knows we've seen plenty of that in the last five years. Like I said, though, I'm not going to dismiss this out of hand.

I'd more likely suspect this to be a way to have an "untraceable" network of disposable communications devices.

Use a phone for 40 minutes, throw it out. The next call goes to the next number on a call list.

They'd be obsolete after a short period of time, but since phone numbers/ESNs would be changing very quickly, I'd suspect that this would very very difficult to track using conventional techniques. (find the "Pad" of phone numbers, and the jig is up, tho').

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.


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.

They did not violated any law, but they did break a Wal-Mart policy, Wal-Mart policy (I am guessing) says that anyone trying to buy more than 3 cell phones should be reported, they did buy more than 3, and thus reported. I don’t see what is so hard to understand about that. This policy was probably not for terrorism, but for organized crime.


what I think was suspected, was that they were buying phones in bulk to spread out to many 'terrorists' who would use them for phone bombs, its a real concern, but doubtful it would happen, it would be more logical for each of the ‘terrorist’ to buy a few phones each, instead of 3 'terrorist' buying all the phones, raising suspicions.

All trac phones say "not for resale".
Well it would be usefull to use a cloned number to call in a bomb, seeing as they can trace the call that set it off. I'd hate to be tracked immediatally after using a phone bomb. It doesn't take a contract and bad credit to track you. Most cell phones can be traced (a la hollywood) to within a very small area, as I understand it. If I were a terrorist, I'd probably want to stay hidden unless I was blowing myself up.

Its untraceable, a second cheep cell phone dumped in a river, a payphone used with gloves, there is nothing they can do to track it. Tracing calls is largely bunk, if you know what your doing, *Cough* VOIP from an open hot spot *Cough*.

or even better, have some one else do it for you:

http://www.callthefuture.org/#plue

I'm especially intrigued by the use of box cutters to open the phones. Obviously, they are terrorists - I don't think anyone else ever uses box cutters for any other purpose other than terrorist plots...

erm - opening boxes?

Can't think it's a plot. Can think it's bloody stupid business choice though...

Oh, I'm sorry - I was being sarcastic :D

Just funny how the article mentioned that - when it really has nothing to do with anything - except that often terrorists are associated wtih boxcutters since 9/11. Had they been opening the cell phones with a scissors or by hand, I doubt it would have gone into such detail.

Any thoughts on why they were separating the components of each box? I don't see how that could have maximized their profit potential.

:: Opens latest UPS shipment with a box cutter:: ;)

Well, they could have sold the chargers on e-bay, and the phones on the street...

just one reason to separate the components.

Ok. What they are most likely doing is buying the nokia phones, "unlocking" them for use off of the tracfone network, and selling them to people who need a new phone but do not want to pay out $100-$400 for one. One of the primary reasons for WalMart's 3 phone policy, IIRC. Yes, they could be using them for a terrorist plot, but I think it's more of a "let's make some quick money" plot.

I dont care if if the people were white, brown, purple or green, I think buying that many phones, in the manner they were buying them, IS peculiar and should be brought to attention. Thats homeland securitys' job. If nothing is going on, better safe than sorry.

And being supposed "naturalized citizens", they should have no hard feelings for the thorough investigation of a possible terrorist threat to the country, no matter their ethnicity.

That doesn't make it illegal to do so. *shrug* Plenty of NFR product gets resold. Worst that can happen is they can send you a cease and desist... maybe...

Still don't see how that'd help. The phones real number or the phones cloned number? The receiving phone number would have to be known to have traced it. Since the phone would have blown up, and likely someone else with that carrier is in the area (seeing as terror usually occurs in busy places), and since the phone would be blown up, it may be difficult to tell WHICH phone call to trace. If they WERE able to trace it, they'd trace it correctly even if it was a cloned number. Phone A Number A to Phone B Number B. If they clone it, it still comes over the tower to phone B. THey'd know the locale. If they had plotted terror, I doubt they'd register with legit info. So the phone location is known, that doesn't lead to a suspect. Hell, in criminal cases where legit cells are used there is often difficulty finding a PERSON attached to it. Even when a fixed land phone is used, there can be trouble associating a single person to it. *shrug*

The problem with this is that a majority of the people repremanded for "terrorist plots" are of Middle Eastern ethnicity. It seems Homeland Security does care whether...


As highly as I regard Tim Nausler's opinion, I prefer substantiated evidence. I mean they certainly must have had evidence to proof that they were linked to terrorist activity before they were charged as terrorists, other than them being Middle Eastern... right? :mad:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...irportwait.jpg
For airports, maybe I can somewhat see where you are coming from, but when it comes day to day commuting to and from the office... I cannot.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...signsubway.jpg
Not only do they have the above kind of restriction, they are even talking about putting cameras in buses for "security" reasons. Do they have checkpoints to check what you and your friends have in the back of your vehicle, better safe than sorry right?

Can't quite get the feel for a terrorist plot - if they were planning to bomb us would they be buying enough for 500 bombs (2 per bomb) or would they just buy enough for the job at hand?
Strikes me that the risk of being seen buying 1000 phones would be great enough to jeopardize the whole plan and as such they wouldn't do it.
Unless of course they were supplying the whole terrorist community and weren't planning a bomb themselves?

Terrorism charges? Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

Have a hammer? Look for nails. Bomb guys look for bombs.

I'd agree this looks like they caught a reseller. One thousand phones won't help any attempt at prosecuting on terrorism charges. But then a profit motive wouldn't make for an exciting story.

Bullshit. Are naturalized citizens not eligible to be covered under the full constitution?

I wonder if these guys have been released yet. I think that the only thing they're guilty of is DWA - driving while Arab. If there's a market for these phones, good for them for making a profit. If they can buy 1000 phones in 2 weeks and turn around and sell them 2 weeks later, that's $6,000 apiece for a month's work. Not bad.

It doesn't matter if the phone or packaging says "not for resale". Once you buy it, it's yours to do with as you please. The manufacturer or seller can't stop you from reselling it, so long as it is legal to do so. And I know of no law prohibiting the resale of phones.