If said entrepreneurs deal strictly in cash, make large deposits in cash, have no visible business presence in the community, and happen to be members of a nationality, group or ethnic subgroup that is in the news for trying to destroy our country, then yes, they should expect some scrutiny. If you stand out in public trying to get attention, it shouldn’t bother you when you get it. These guys did everything possible to get tagged as suspicious. I have no sympathy for their position.
If you’re not planning on blowing up a bridge than what do you need with 1,000 cell phones?
Answer me that!
So if one is not using one’s American Express card from a fixed address in order to attempt to make a living, that requires scrutiny? Does that also apply to the guys running around the Chesapeake Bay harvesting and selling oysters, crabs, or clams?
I’m also mildly interested as to how “making large deposits in cash” show that they have no “visible business presence” in their community.
I’ll leave aside your racial profiling, for the moment.
If you can explain in what way you believe that buying low in one location, and selling high in another location, is “everything possible to get tagged as suspicious”, then I won’t call you an asshole.
I’ll assume that for once, you’re not being sarcastic. To take them somewhere else and sell them at a profit. Duh. Did that help?
Why would you need 1000 bombs to blow up a bridge anyway? (Assuming one cell phone per detonator.)
I"d buy them suckers in a heartbeat if I could get them for $20 and resell them for cash to a waiting buyer for $25 each. Hell, I’d get in my van and head crosscountry to do this.
My reply is not facetious. Is yours?
My emphasis. Really? They were trying to get attention?
What a load of crap.
I was being sarcastic. I gotta admit that I’m a little bit confused about the 1,000 cellphones = exploding bridge thing. I must be missing a step here.
Phase one - Get 1,000 cell phones.
Phase two - ???
Phase three - Booom!
Could they be used for one time each calls to an answering machine? Would that be difficult to trace?
The problem would be carrying around a couple of hundred phones. 
I’m pretty sure I just experienced two (2) mods getting wooshed serially by one poster. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy myself. Any other mods want to get wooshed? We could try for a hat trick.
Someone could smuggle them into a concert, sporting event, or into a crowed bus or train car and set them to go off all at once each with a different ringtone.
Hmmmm. And, as you are driving crosscountry what would you do if you came upon a body of water that was blocking your path?
How do you propose… in your van… to get across?
Hmmmm?
Yeah. Sorry.
Seriously though, is there like some kind of way to make a bomb from cell phones that I don’t know about?
We’ll have to keep deleting all the posts after samclem’s. I think even Giraffe would tag that as suspicious.
I suppose you could blow up the battery. Otherwise, I don’t see how else you could blow up a phone itself. Although making them detonators would be incredibly easy.
Using a cell phone to detonate a bomb is certainly feasible.
You have missed a couple of steps here, friend Scylla. It goes like this:
- buy 1000 cell phones
- set them all on silent ring-vibrate
- set all the phones to the same number
- load all 1000 vibrating cell phones into a panel truck
- drive the truck into the middle of the Mackinac Bridge
- abandon the panel truck
- in an accompanying vehicle drive to the UP
- call the 1000 cell phones all set to one phone number and set on silent ring
- watch the Mackinac Bridge collapse into the Straits of Mackinac stopping commerce on the Great Lakes and isolating the UP
- go to Green Bay, recruit an army to take over the UP in the name of its rightful overlord, the State of Wisconsin.
You see, there is a purpose to this madness. The Uppers will welcome the forces of Wisconsin as liberators. If some guys from Minnesota throw in on the deal we can call it a coalition. The Badger-Gopher Coalition of the Willing.
There are dark forces at work here. Things are not as thy seem. Every bullet that struck a Union soldier boy was fired by a Democrat.
You have missed a couple of steps here, friend Scylla. It goes like this:
- buy 1000 cell phones
- set them all on silent ring-vibrate
- set all the phones to the same number
- load all 1000 vibrating cell phones into a panel truck
- drive the truck into the middle of the Mackinac Bridge
- abandon the panel truck
- in an accompanying vehicle drive to the UP
- call the 1000 cell phones all set to one phone number and set on silent ring
- watch the Mackinac Bridge collapse into the Straits of Mackinac stopping commerce on the Great Lakes and isolating the UP
- go to Green Bay, recruit an army to take over the UP in the name of its rightful overlord, the State of Wisconsin.
You see, there is a purpose to this madness. The Uppers will welcome the forces of Wisconsin as liberators. If some guys from Minnesota throw in on the deal we can call it a coalition. The Badger-Gopher Coalition of the Willing.
There are dark forces at work here. Things are not as thy seem. Every bullet that struck a Union soldier boy was fired by a Democrat.
Sorry, my fault.
Well, SamClem called it. I saw the head of Homeland Security for Michigan on the news at 9:00 announcing that all terrorism charges have been dropped in the Michigan case. There is no terrorism link and the Mackinack bridge is safe. The three men are still being detained, but no further charges have been made as yet. THey are investigating whether they are involved in shady financial dealings. Apparently, they’re looking to find any reason whatsoever to charge them with something.
“Hello, Ahkmed? Light the fuse.”
Thats true, but I don’t think thats why folks were suspicious. I THINK the reason is that the phones could be given to terrorist operatives…give them several pre-paid phones and then they could switch them periodically and randomly, and therefore avoid being monitored.
BTW, I think its BS too…I think these guys were just after some dinero and it sounds like a pretty good gig to me. I don’t see what is illegal, though I suppose there might be something if they are modifying the things so they won’t stay on the originally intended network.
As to the bridge pictures (and I thought they had some info on flight schedules or something like that…I might be mis-remembering)…well, that might be suspicious when you couple in the phones AND their ethnic origins (yeah, I know…its bullshit to suspect someone just because they are Arabic decent…but the police/FBI DO profile, so to them it IS going to be suspicious).
I’ll await further details, but I think this will turn out to be just a case of some guys trying to make some bucks…
-XT