Monday, August 14, 2006
terrorism surveillance of a vulnerable target
That's one of the offenses the three guys in Caro, MI were charged with this week. If you haven't heard, three guys of middle-eastern heritage were buying cell-phones (a lot of cell phones) at 2am at a WalMart in a small town in eastern Michigan. The clerk thought it suspicious that they had bought 200 cell phones, three at a time and called the cops who subsequently busted them. They had around 1,000 cell phones in her van. The guys' story was that they were traveling all over the midwest buying cell phones at $20 each to resell them at $38 in Texas.
It seems most stores have a limit to what you can buy, so they'd keep returning and buying the limit allowed, I guess until the store was out. I see several problems with this story. Assuming the guys' story is true. It would seem to me that if you're buying thousands of cell phones for resale(they say they've done this before) I'm sure you could broker a better deal than buying them retail. Why travel all the way to Wisconsin and Michigan to buy a cell phone to sell back in Texas? And really, how much sense is it for three guys of middle-eastern descent to be buying stuff at two in the morning - and questionable purchases at that. It's not right, but today, when your name sounds like Abdul and you try something "odd" in an almost lily white small town - you're going to raise suspicions.
The main points seem to be that cell phones can be used in bombs. The three guys are middle-eastern. They had pictures and videos of the Mackinac Bridge (Big Mac). Ok, yes, most anything can be used in bombs - nails, water pipe, batteries, flashbulbs, travel clocks, and yes - cell phones. Pictures of Big Mac? Hell, I have pictures of Big Mac. I'd say that most people who've driven over the Big Mac have pictures of it. It's pretty impressive - especially to someone from Pakistan now living in Texas. That charge of "terrorism surveillance of a vulnerable target" really bothers me. Think. Have you taken any pictures of "vulnerable targets" lately? Which is just about anything and everything in from coast to coast. I have pictures of the Blue Water Bridge, Wright-Pat Air Force Museum, the local shopping mall, and my old Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Does all that make me a domestic terrorist or a tourist? Think. Basically if you carry a camera and a cell phone today, you can be arrested for terrorism. Home of the brave and land of the not-so free.
