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Huachuca City detains 2 Middle Eastern men with 1000 cell phones; Feds release them (AARRGG!!)
KVOA Tucson Channel 4 News ^ | Lupita Murillo

Posted on 08/16/2006 10:44:31 PM PDT by SandRat

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."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; US: Arizona; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 1000; 2; cellphones; city; detains; eastern; feds; huachuca; jihadicellphones; me; men; middle; release
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To: nopardons

Turning off the cell phone towers is probably going to be too late. How many phone calls could be made (e.g. by computer) in 10 minutes? Lots. The horse will have left the barn.

A complementary tactic is for the cellphone companies to block massive activation of pre-paid cellphones within a short time window. I get lots of calls that go into voicemail when my cellphone is unengaged because the carrier is at capacity and does not want to connect the call. Surely the carriers can detect centrally which phones are pre-paid, and surely they have enough usage data to know what constitutes an aberrant pattern of activation. So they block the calls when the aberrancy is high. A few of the phones may detonate, but 500 would not...


21 posted on 08/16/2006 11:56:08 PM PDT by jo6pack (the real scoop?)
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To: jo6pack
I really don't know much about cell phones and have used mine all of four times, or so. I think it's a waste to have; frankly, but then, I am a bit of a Luddite.
22 posted on 08/17/2006 12:05:56 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: Jedidah
Actually, it is being reconfigured so that it can be used on another network, you don't get any additional minutes out of it. You still have to buy any additional minutes. It's just that you are not locked-in to just Tracfone, you can now use it on Cingular, Nextel, or T-Mobile -- networks that don't offer any compatible cell phones at that price.

The local police are charging them with counterfeiting since the phones are altered and are supposedly not the same as the "real" phones that are unaltered. I don't know if that will stand, as no one has ever been convicted of breaking a law by deleting the subsidy lock. We'll have to wait and see.

23 posted on 08/17/2006 12:14:07 AM PDT by FreedomCalls (It's the "Statue of Liberty," not the "Statue of Security.")
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To: Jedidah

Methinks feign in one direction and go in another.


24 posted on 08/17/2006 12:23:31 AM PDT by LFOD (IRAQ - Back in downtown Baghdad)
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To: Crazieman

The Nokia production planners are going nuts. Their sales guys are happy thugh.


25 posted on 08/17/2006 12:23:41 AM PDT by Cobra64 (All we get are lame ideas from Republicans and lame criticism from dems about those lame ideas.)
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To: SandRat

Chertoff is sure making a big bet, that this is all harmless.

I hope along with releasing these people, we are following them ALL very closely.

And investigating every aspect of their lives' their addresses, their email, their phone calls, their travels and associations.

Cuz if they are not, and Chertoff bet wrong, no telling the result.


26 posted on 08/17/2006 12:28:53 AM PDT by truth_seeker
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To: SAJ; Dosa26
SAJ- Come on, you know how PC the government is. Dosa is right they will shut down cell towers, protect mosques, then outlaw these pre-paid anonymous user cellphones.

Some war on terror.

27 posted on 08/17/2006 12:30:19 AM PDT by GeronL (flogerloon.blogspot.com -------------> Rise of the Hate Party)
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To: taxesareforever

I read in the Dawn Pakistan newspaper about men arrested with a lot of cell phones. They must know something that we do not.


28 posted on 08/17/2006 1:18:20 AM PDT by tessalu
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To: SandRat; All

Its stuff like this that makes me wonder just whose side our government is on.


29 posted on 08/17/2006 3:56:03 AM PDT by proudofthesouth (Mao said that power comes at the point of a rifle; I say FREEDOM does.)
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To: jellybean; Crazieman

Yes, my map provides a quick graphic of where the purchases have been made or what cities purchases are associated with. Jellybeans fills out the specific details with these purchases. By the way, Jellybean, it looks like there is another one just South East of Tucson that probably isn't the Tucson one. Someone linked it on the map thread.


30 posted on 08/17/2006 4:47:02 AM PDT by Blogger (http://www.propheteuon.com)
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To: SandRat

Is the purpose here to to sell these phones to people who do not wish their calls to be traced to a name? (since you do not have to register an identity to Tracphones)


31 posted on 08/17/2006 5:21:31 AM PDT by wolfcreek (You can spit in our tacos and you can rape our dogs but, you can't take away our freedom!)
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To: GeronL

They use them for more then detonators. They are a secure means of communication. The cell members are given a number of phones told to use them once or twice then toss them. Makes it much harder for the Feds to track them down, no "pattern" of calls for the computers at Langley to look for.


32 posted on 08/17/2006 5:25:47 AM PDT by Kozak (Anti Shahada: " There is no God named Allah, and Muhammed is his False Prophet")
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To: proudofthesouth

Wonder what the government reaction would be if a bunch of WHITE GUYS started buying up cell phones by the thousands?


33 posted on 08/17/2006 6:06:43 AM PDT by newcthem (Brought to you by the INFIDEL PARTY)
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To: SandRat

BTTT


34 posted on 08/17/2006 6:13:10 AM PDT by Unicorn (Too many wimps around.)
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To: GeronL
The 'War on Terror' is an intellectually incoherent concept. Terror is a tactic; one does not make war against a tactic.

A sneak attack is another tactic in conflicts. The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor caused the US to go to war. Did we declare a war against sneak attacks? Of course not, we declared a war against the people who executed the sneak attack.

While I agree completely with your view that the war against barbaric 'religiously'-inspired fanatics is being horribly mismanaged, I said nothing whatever about shutting down cell phone towers. It seems likely that even this incompetent 'war' effort would be able to figure out that shutting down towers would be both called for and effective in disrupting enemy comms. Don't know how to compute the cost to the economy, though. I should think that a universal shutdown nationwide would be far too costly, and in any case would have little more marginal impact against enemy comms than a selective shutdown (every tower within, say, 50 miles of Dearbornistan, for instance, and similar areas).

As to protecting mosques, **assuming** another outrage on the order of 9/11, I'll stand by my earlier comment and, as noted, we will simply have to agree to disagree. I consider, whether correctly or not, that the level of rage of the citizens at large after a second atrocity will be simply incalculable, that there will be an enormous number of instances of vigilantism, and that a sizeable percentage of soldiers, upon being ordered to protect mosques, will simply refuse the order as unlawful.

Such an order would indeed be unlawful in my view; what could be a clearer example of 'giving aid and comfort' to the enemy, not to mention violation of Posse Comitatus? Granted, some a&&hole judge or another might not see it that way, but any soldier refusing an order as described would have little to fear.

The lawyers will tie up such cases for years and years, because such cases will be brutally difficult to prosecute. Does the gov't try them under UCMJ? Don't think so; the effect on morale servicewide would be nearly indescribable, and enlistments and reups would FAPP cease. Potential soldiers, as well as those now serving, will reason -- and rightly so -- as follows: 'Why should I join/stay in an organisation that will be/is ordering me to protect the people who are killing my fellow Americans, and will attempt to brand me as a felon if I refuse to do so?'

All right, you (the hypothetical 'you', not your actual self) say, then prosecute the disobedient soldier in civilian courts. I'm not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, but, aside from the dubious legality of such an approach, where would the prosecution expect to find 12 citizens to convict the soldier of disobedience or dereliction? Defense counsel will be able to exclude **every** islamic from jury pools, for cause. This process will be childishly simple, too: A) simply ask whether the potential venireman follows the teachings of al-Quran, then B) cite numerous passages from al-Quran, the ones we've seen here on FR dozens of times, showing that the potential venireman is untrustworthy at law ('taqqiyeh', sp?), predisposed against those who fail to protect his cult, and predisposed toward the commission of assorted unlawful acts against fellow citizens, aka 'infidels'.

Returning to cell phones for a moment, it would seem to me to be a straightforward matter, speaking technically, to insert an ID into a cell phone's carrier wave and reprogram cell towers to simply refuse to process any calls w/o such an ID. Probably cost quite a bit, but well worth it, wouldn't you say?

FR has lots of EEs and tech mavens, I wounder what their comments would be. One of a number of points that I can't figure out about such an attempt is whether or not the insertion of a carrier ID (if it doesn't already exist, of course) would violate one or another protocol.

FReegards to you!

35 posted on 08/17/2006 6:25:37 AM PDT by SAJ
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To: Blogger
I've added another Tucson icon to the map on Frappr

Also, I just noticed someone has joined as a member at tracphonepurchases and added this for Honolulu, HI:

At least 9,500 tracphones were purchased in various electronics stores over a 20 day period by trio of Arab men. Source cannot be revealed yet. (gov't intel)

Hawaii doesn't display at the zoom level set by Frappr, but if you scroll down to Map markers on the right, someone joined as "electronic stores". When you click on their name, the map shifts and a box pops up with this message appears.

36 posted on 08/17/2006 10:55:25 AM PDT by jellybean (Proud to be an Ann-droid and a Steyn-aholic)
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To: SandRat

The tip of the iceberg. If we know about this many purchases, there are thousands more. Something is brewing in the minds of islamic fascists.


37 posted on 08/17/2006 10:57:06 AM PDT by Leftism is Mentally Deranged (American Left, Islamic Fascism, Mainstream Media = ideology of nihilism, despair, nothingness.)
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To: tessalu
They must know something that we do not.

I'm beginning to think everyone else does also. It's like the U.S. wears blinders.

38 posted on 08/17/2006 11:12:59 AM PDT by taxesareforever (Never forget Matt Maupin)
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To: jellybean

9500? Gee!


39 posted on 08/17/2006 11:35:49 AM PDT by Blogger (http://www.propheteuon.com)
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To: 308MBR

Four days, really. Aug 22 will be Aug 21 our time as Muslims count the next day starting when you can see a white thread in the dark, or so I've read.


40 posted on 08/17/2006 11:43:34 AM PDT by txhurl
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