I am just trying to consider all the possibilities.
Next question, though is whether or not they have a GPS built into the disposable phones. If they do, pulling the batteries would effectively disable the GPS, making them harder to track.
Interesting possibilities here...
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/cat_cell_phones_used_by_terrorists.htm
If they want lithium for making dope, there are cheaper sources -- they could sell the batteries, and then buy el cheapo "button cells". However, I do NOT believe that the batteries on a low priced "entry level" $20 handset is going to be a lithium battery. They are generally reserved for high end devices. They are costlier, and, they require special charging circuits. If you just rig up a DC source and charge them up, they will likely catch fire. That's likely as in VERY likely. Chargers for lithium ion batteries are very "smart" devices.
Most likely these phones come with nicad or nimh batteries, due to cost considerations. They are cheap, and they work.
I believe that the vermin are going to use these phones as detonators, and power them from a high output source, such as a lead-acid gelcell battery, or, more likely (due to cost, availability, and, lack of need to give them an initial charge), an array of alkaline "D" cells, which would power the phone for days if not weeks in "standby" mode (unlike the stock battery, which is only going to operate for a day or so at most).
I think there is something really ugly going on, and I think the arrests so far are only the tip of the iceberg. This is simple statistics -- the criminals apprehended are almost always a small fraction of the actual number "in the wild" (i.e., dope smugglers, dealers, burglars, muggers, etc.)
If I had to make a guess, I'd be extra-puckered on Aug. 22nd (the Iranian threat-date), Sept. 11th (the 5th anniversary of the 911 attacks), Thanksgiving (biggest shopping day of the year), or Christmas (biggest "infidel holiday").
Or, they could just pop us on some random day, when we're not expecting anything.
I mused in another thread that the bastards they caught in Caro Michigan were found with receipts from Wisconsin as well as Michigan -- but NOT from IL or IN. Curious, isn't it, since, IF they drove to Wisconsin, they'd pass through those two states on the way there from Michigan. Hard to think they'd drive through two entire states and NOT buy ANY phones, waiting until they got to WI. (Hard to belive, because among other things, people are reporting that it's getting nearly impossible to find the phones, because as soon as they hit the shelves, they are bought out by "Middle Eastern Men" -- EVERYWHERE. So, it's a stretch to accept that they'd drive through two whole states without hitting up every possible source along the way. They were obviously on a sweep mission, snarfing up everything in sight. To drive through two states and buy nothing... this does not compute.)
So, I mused that they likely drove pretty much straight west across Michigan, to Ludington, and then took the Car Ferry to either Milwaukee or Manitowoc. That gets them to Wisconsin, without passing through Illinois or Indiana.
It also takes them through Ludington -- site of the world's biggest earthen dam, the "Pumped Storage Facility). For details, peruse my recent posting history -- I forget the name of the thread, there've been so many today. But, you'll see it.
In short, if they blow the dam (the "dam" is really a HIGH pile of dirt around a BIG artificial lake), they will wreak havoc with "the grid", since it supplies a nontrivial amount of electricity during peak demand times, but they will also flood a LOT of land.
Since I posted that, I remembered that not too far from the Pumped Storage Facility stands a VERY tall antenna tower. I think it's about five or ten years old, and it must be at least 500 feet tall if not taller. It's a girder type tower, freestanding (IIRC). The biggest I've ever seen.
It's used for the State Police and other emergency services.
It would almost certainly be knocked out if the dam was blown.
From what I know of UHF radio propagation, an antenna at the top of a tower that tall would have a coverage range of at least a hundred miles.
There's a GMRS repeater in Ohio at a tower that's not that tall, which people have reported hitting from as far as Ann Arbor MI, which must be close to 200 miles or so. GMRS is restricted by law to 50 Watt output. State Police radios are NOT! So, that tower (near Ludington) must be supporting emergency services for a BIG part of the state.
I am hoping that they have put "the facility" under high scrutiny. But even if they do manage to protect it, we are an open country, and there are millions of other targets. We are very vulnerable to a dedicated foe who wants to "fifth column" us. We are whistling past the graveyard if we think that the reason we haven't been hit yet is because we can't be hit.
And from the spate of recent reports, coming in from all over the country, it appears that we ARE gonna get hit -- and soon.
Frankly this gives me the creeps.