Thanks to Oorang for this post which includes in part a snippet about cell phones.
The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1793738/posts?page=117#117
MI5 trains supermarket checkout staff
04 March 2007
Supermarket checkout staff are being trained by the security services in how to detect potential terrorists. MI5 has been secretly advising food retailers, including Asda and Tesco, on how to identify extremist shoppers. Measures include increasing CCTV in underground carparks to prevent bomb attacks and being alert to mass purchases of mobile phones, which can be used as bomb detonators. The awareness training for staff also covers bulk sales of toiletries which could be used as the basic ingredient in explosives.
The security services and ministers are worried supermarkets are an attractive target for terrorists because of the potential for mass casualties. One terrorism expert said: "Terrorists know if they frighten people from everyday activities they are 'winning the war'. What better than a busy supermarket which is hard to defend and with lots of cars in a car park?"
A Tesco spokesman said: "We have strict procedures and contingency plans in place and we remain in close contact with the security services at all levels." Asda also confirmed it had "contingency plans" to cover a "number of potential crises".
The Asda chain is owned by the US retail giant Wal-Mart. Last year, three Palestinian-Americans from Texas were arrested in a Wal-Mart outlet in Michigan after staff spotted them bulk-buying mobile phones. The suspects claimed to be buying the 80 handsets to resell them for a profit, but police held them on suspicion they were planning to use the phones as detonators. Their van contained 1,000 phones and pictures of a bridge, police said. The men are awaiting trial.
The FBI has already thwarted a terrorist plot in the US which was aimed at hospitals and supermarkets. Last April, a 23-year-old man was convicted of supporting terror after plotting a jihad against supermarkets and hospitals in the US. Hamid Hayat, who faces a possible sentence of 38 years, admitted he had attended a terror training camp in the Balakot area of Pakistan. His plea for a new trial was rejected last month.
The FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security sent out joint bulletins in February and March to police departments nationwide warning about the bulk purchase of phones for personal profit or financing terrorism. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, warned in the wake of the bombing of the Twin Towers that supermarkets were an attractive target for al-Qa'ida, which could use them to cause mass casualties through bombings or poison plots.
MPs also warned in a report in 2003 that more needed to be done to protect the food industry after Tesco revealed there was a "real and current threat" of terrorists contaminating food supplies.
Special Branch officers were used during the IRA bombing campaigns on the British mainland to give advice to companies, including the food industry, on the threat they faced. But security sources said that the problem is now much more serious, because modern extremists are more random in their approach, unlike the IRA which focused on very specific targets. Whitehall sources confirmed that many businesses including "those in the food industry" have been given training and advice, although they refused to give specific details.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2326211.ece
117 posted on 03/03/2007 6:45:27 PM PST by Oorang (Tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people - Alex Kozinski)
Note: The following Google Translation (of the article below) is an automatic text translation and is a quote:
Original text: Automatically translated text:
Million and average one of cellular robs every year in Colombia The denunciation was done east Friday by the president of the Association of the Cellular Industry of Colombia (Asocel), Tulio Arbeláez Angel. The director declared that a 60 percent of the cases of robberies commits of a pull or “raponazo”, and needed that many stolen apparatuses are going to stop to countries border like Ecuador. “The data throw that they rob between 1.500.000 and 1.600.000 cellular ones to the year, a number that demonstrates the desired thing that it is this criminal modality ", indicated Arbeláez Angel. It needed that the robbed apparatuses represent the six percent of the total of movable telephones that there are in the country, which they calculate in more than 25 million. The spokesman of the companies of cellular telephony explained that “the robbery of cellular has become an activity lucrative, since there is great amount of buyers of equipment used by his low price ". He added that in spite of the technological possibilities of to block the cellular ones robbed, the thieves are able resources to unblock them or to change the serial numbers to them. For two years the companies that offer the service of movable telephony and the Ministry of Communications they agreed to a campaign to restrain the theft of apparatuses, and decided the creation an electronic base of data in line on the robbed telephones to inform to other countries of the Andean region. With EFE
===
===
http://www.eltiempo.com/justicia/2007-03-02/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-3459065.html
eltiempo.com / justicia
Marzo 2 de 2007
Millón y medio de celulares se roban cada año en Colombia
La denuncia fue hecha este viernes por el presidente de la Asociación de la Industria Celular de Colombia (Asocel), Tulio Ángel Arbeláez.
El directivo declaró que un 60 por ciento de los casos de robos se comete de un tirón o "raponazo", y precisó que muchos aparatos hurtados van a parar a países fronterizos como Ecuador.
"Los datos arrojan que se roban entre 1.500.000 y 1.600.000 celulares al año, una cifra que demuestra lo apetecida que es esta modalidad delictiva", señaló Ángel Arbeláez.
Precisó que los aparatos robados representan el seis por ciento del total de teléfonos móviles que hay en el país, que se calculan en más de 25 millones.
El portavoz de las empresas de telefonía celular explicó que "el robo de celulares se ha vuelto una actividad lucrativa, ya que hay gran cantidad de compradores de equipos usados por su bajo precio".
Agregó que pese a la posibilidades tecnológicas de bloquear los celulares robados, los ladrones consiguen recursos para desbloquearlos o cambiarles los números de serie.
Hace dos años las compañías que ofrecen el servicio de telefonía móvil y el Ministerio de Comunicaciones pactaron una campaña para frenar el hurto de aparatos, y acordaron la creación de una base electrónica de datos en línea sobre los teléfonos robados para informar a otros países de la región andina.
Con EFE