3 Texas men arraigned on terror charges

[ConstitutionCowboy]

SuperNaut, Jorg and DerbyFALs

Right you all are! I've never heard of the series, "Firefly". I'm going to have to find it on DVD, I guess. Thanks, you three!

Keep up the vigil!

Woody

"Revolution is the Right of the People to preserve or restore Freedom. Those vested with power should never deprive the People the means, for it may compel such recourse." B.E.Wood

 

[Derby FALs]

Heard it was on sale at WalMart not long ago.

 

[Desertdog]

Huachuca City detains 2 Middle Eastern men with 1000 cell phones; Feds release them.

Something smells to high heaven to me. I, personally think there are some attacks on the herizon.

"They had taken phones out of the containers, out of the packages. They didn't take chargers, didn't take instructions how to activate the phone, they just left everything else behind."

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=5286637
Huachuca City detains 2 Middle Eastern men with 1000 cell phones; Feds release them


Arizona's Counter-Terrorism Information Center has advised Arizona's law enforcement officials that there is a possible increase in suspicious purchases of prepaid cell phones.

Tucson Police have been searching for two men, of Middle Eastern descent for allegedly trying to buy around 50 disposable cell phones at a local Sam's Club.

Those men are wanted for questioning, but not criminal charges.

The Counter-Terrorism center is also monitoring the case.

Tuesday, two new claims.

An inside source says at a Tucson Family Dollar store, two men have also been trying to buy cell phones from that chain.

And there's news from Huachuca City that police detained two Middle Eastern men from California for trying to buy large quantities of disposable cell phones.

Experts say that those disposable phones can't be traced and that they can be used to detonate a bomb.

Those details are exclusive to News 4 and our Lupita Murillo.

------

An anonymous tip to Huachuca City police on April 21st...

Sgt. Jennifer Fuller, the dispatcher who took the call, says, "There were two Middle Eastern gentlemen buying a large amount of phones in the general area and they were headed our way."

Huachuca City police swung into action. They set up surveillance at the Dollar General and the Family Dollar stores.

They soon spottd the black Ford Explorer with a California license plate, the vehicle the caller told police about.

Three people -- a woman, and two men with Middle Eastern names -- were detained, questioned, and later released by federal agents.

Sgt. Fuller says "The ICE agents checked with their supervisors and, because nothing illegal was going on, the two men were allowed to leave."

Police found in the vehicle, a large number of prepaid cell phones.

Sgt. Fuller says, "They had purchased about 300 phones in the surrounding areas. Later discovered 1000 in their vehicle."

"They had taken phones out of the containers, out of the packages. They didn't take chargers, didn't take instructions how to activate the phone, they just left everything else behind."

So while purchasing 1000 phones may not be illegal, Huachuca City police say, "It's just enough to make you think it's not right."

As we mentioned, there's a new report of big cell phone purchases in Tucson Family Dollar stores as well.

A source tells News 4 that on Saturday, 2 men came in to try to buy as many cell phones as they could.

The source says this has been happening for the last two months.

Family Dollar released a statement to News 4, saying that it sells the disposable phones without a contract for customer convenience, but says, "While the program has been very well received by our customers, we do limit (the) purchase to two per customer to curtail opportunities for re-sale in other markets."

 

[Rabbi]

Careful, guys .................. if you try verbally questioning Jihadis here, you are are going to get a warning. I backed down, I like it here. I just keep my opinions to myself now.

 

[geegee]

This, to me, is one of the strangest quotes on the article:

Louai Othman's wife, Lina Odeh, said the men were buying the phones to sell to a man in Dallas for a profit of about $5 per phone. She said they were in Michigan because so many people in the Dallas area are doing the same thing that the phones are often sold out.

Yeah, you pretty much need to leave Dallas and not stop driving until you hit Detroit, before you can find some more Wal Marts with Trac Phones.

If so many people are doing it in the Dallas area, and now we know that Wal Mart employees are indeed watching, why aren't purchases like this being regularly reported? And if you really do need to drive that far away, are we to believe that the only place you can drive to is a city with the largest Muslim population in the US? Why not head east to Atlanta? Heck, why even leave Texas at all? We have more than a few Wal Marts here, last time I checked.

This story provides many more questions than answers.

 

[Art Eatman]

Rabbi, I don't think there's any "soft" on Jihadists, here. It's the all-inclusive references that derrogate ALL Islamics that create problems.

As far as I'm concerned, anybody can bad-mouth Jihadists all they want to, as long as the comments are pertinent to a thread's topic. Just use language appropriate to THR.

Art

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

SuperNaut, Jorg and DerbyFALs

Ordered Firefly: The Complete series from Amazon just now.

Back to the topic, Is there any way to jam a cell phone so's I can carry a jammer around with me and foil any IEDs that might be "within my space"?

'Course, it might interupt any cell phones near me - including my own - but hey, I'd be safe!

In all seriousness, I'll hold to my original thoughts on the matter, that these phones are for the command and control of a large terror cell, or a passel of little ones.

Woody

 

[GigaBuist]

Yeah, you pretty much need to leave Dallas and not stop driving until you hit Detroit, before you can find some more Wal Marts with Trac Phones.

You do if you want 1,000 of them. The store that reported them to the FBI said that they got 80 from there. Presuming that's average they'd have to hit at least 11 stores. I'm also guessing that 80 is exceptionally high which is why nobody reported them until they hit Michigan.

Further, Wal-Mart policy says that you may only buy 3 of these phones at a time. Also stated here.

With a roving band of 3 people you can do 9 phones at a time. Go eat lunch, come back, purchase some more hoping nobody notices you scamming the system and you could maybe swipe 18-27 phones per store before anybody really noticed you.

So, given that stores only carry a limited supply of these phones and actively keep you from buying them up in bulk, I don't think it's that out of the question that they actually DID have to go that far to collect all these phones.

Yes, Michigan is home to Dearborn and there is a large Arab Muslim population living there. So large that our current governor actually has an "About" page on her website in Arabic.

However, these youngsters didn't end up in Dearborn -- they went as far north as the bridge. And they took PICTURES of it! Just like every other person I know of that is seeing the bridge for the first time. It's impressive! Golly, my grandpappy took video footage of a bridge crossing on 8mm tape back in the day. Musta been a jihadist sympathizer.

If only we had known. I thought my grandpa was into sight-seeing. Little did we know that he was an operative of the Taliban only venturing to the bridge for terroristic activities. I'm so ashamed. Heck, I've taken pictures of the bridge. Mohammed must have gotten to me! Allah Akbar!

Given that they've been released I'm considering it quite plausible that they were collecting these phones for re-use as replacements to be sold to folks that had either lost or damaged their other phones. Every cell company out there sells them at a loss but the pre-paid companies do so without a contract. There's a reason there's a $200 cancelation fee with your cell contract -- that's probably about as much as they lost on selling you that phone.

The pre-paid folks hinged their bets on people not cracking the phones and opening them up to other networks. Since the phones can be hacked, there's now a market out there for hacking them and selling them back to other consumers.

Y'all knew that, right? That there's a viable profit behind this stuff? Major news orgs didn't make a deal of it (that I know of) but I trust that you did your research.

Of course they're going to separate the battery from the phone! A replacement battery would cost as much as the $30 phone itself. They can be parted out. That's the same reason you don't buy a charger: there's no hacking to be done on the charger so there's nothing they can do to it to increase it's value beyond that of retail.

So, I'm going to hedge my bets on some college kids trying a 'get rich quick' scheme that's only going to net them chump change but still allow them to see a significant amount of the country.

The other theory, I suppose, is that American Muslims of Arab descent are purchasing phones in the USA designed by foreign countries, and likely manufactured in Korea, at below cost because terrorist organizations are unable to afford purchasing them on the international market with their pithy profits from the international oil and heroin trade. They then hack them to work as a legit phone on the Iraqi network, ship them out sans-battery and charger, only to be used as a bomb detonation system. Somehow this is much easier, or cost efficient, than buying a cell phone on the Iraqi market for Iraqi dollars? With all parts intact?

 

[Desertdog]

In all seriousness, I'll hold to my original thoughts on the matter, that these phones are for the command and control of a large terror cell, or a passel of little ones.

Or shipped to Iraq.

With the volumn of phones being purchased questions really shoud be raised as to what they are going to be used for.

At $5 per phone markup minus expenses, I see no profit.

Phones without chargers or operating manual does not sound like it is to be resold to the general public. If I was an FBI agent, I would be wanting to check out the person these guys are selling to.

 

[ccwolff]

Something smells to high heaven to me. I, personally think there are some attacks on the herizon.

I could not agree with you more.

That Constitution of The United States of America has stood in the way of Federal power for long enough. The .gov is getting ready to open an even lager can of woopass on it and those who support it.

 

[geegee]

Quote:
Yeah, you pretty much need to leave Dallas and not stop driving until you hit Detroit, before you can find some more Wal Marts with Trac Phones.


You do if you want 1,000 of them.

Check the number of stores by state here:

http://www.walmartfacts.com/StateByState/

The most recent count in Texas is over 300, with Michigan showing about 78 or so. But I guess on summer break, why not take a road trip from Dallas to Michigan? Certainly cooler when you get there.

 

[Linux&Gun Guy]

These guys are buying up phones for their fellow conspirators. The number of phones confiscated tells me there are at least 1,680 conspirators out there.

These guys are buying up guns and THOUSANDS of rounds of ammo for their fellow conspirators. The number of rounds confiscated tells me there are at least 1,680 conspirators out there.....


As for the idea of using the same precursors to make both methamphetamine and organic peroxides - that's retarded. H2O2 has no place in methamp production but plays the key role in the synthesis of organic peroxides. Nor does making methamp require any sort of nitration whereas nitro explosives do. Clearly you must be confusing amine with nitro NH2 is not ONO2!!

 

[Ryder]

This annual activity is less than three weeks away. You can bet I won't be there... Even armed.