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Thanks to Little Jeremiah for the ping to this thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1701803/posts

"Has Michigan Become Tracfonistan?" The Examiner ^ | 09/14/06 | Debbie Schlussel
Posted on 09/14/2006 8:13:03 PM PDT by goldstategop

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON - Five young Muslim men are stopped by multiple TracFones in the Midwest. That’s not illegal. Yet, they are charged with terrorism. Just weeks later, the charges are dropped.

Just a case of Islamophobic law enforcement overreacting to innocents because of Sept. 11. Right?

Wrong.

There’s a lot more to the story with Adham Abdelhamid Othman, Maruan Awad Muhareb, and Louai Abdelhamied Othman — from Texas with 1,000 cell phones in Caro, Mich. — and Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan — from Dearborn, Mich., with multiple cell phones and $11,000 in southern Ohio.

The Texas men had photos of Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge. The Michigan FBI and state police claimed there was no terrorist threat, just tourist photos. But a top FBI Michigan official admitted he sent his “B-Team” of agents to “investigate.” Prosecutors said it was more like arm-twisting to get them to drop terrorism charges.

WJRT-TV reporter Jeff Piechowski reported that the photos were shots of bridge grates, revealing the bridge supports below. How many tourists take pictures of grates? If there was no threat, why did law enforcement authorities beef up security like never before for a Labor Day march on the bridge?

The men threw away 1,000 cell phone chargers. Not a good business move, if you’re truly in it for the “business.” Prosecutors told Piechowski that boxes of the phones were addressed for Lebanon, aka Hezbollah Central.

The indictment of the men said they installed software on their laptop computers, with which they’d already wired the phones to steal free cell phone service from any company in any location around the world — untraceable."