Yet more mass cellphone buys

[dianeduane]

Fascinating. But is this just profiling gone askew? In this climate, you have to wonder...

(See also this news story for more info.)

Comments

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

That's quite weird... Marietta isn't far from here, and I hadn't heard a peep about it until now (not that I bother watching much local news anyway, and we'll just not discuss the birdcage liner masquerading as a newspaper we have in this town)... at this stage, I have to admit that I am leaning toward racial profiling as being the real culprit here. I know that any time I've had to drop someone off at the airport, the only people I see getting the full bag search are women and minorities--I've never seen a white guy in a business suit get his bag opened.

Pretty clear to me what message that sends.

[wolfette]

considering that oh so many young men of Middle Eastern and Pakistani origin are in the entepreneur business, running small phone shops, etc.

[syberghost.livejournal.com]

And of course many of those just HAPPEN to have airline passenger manifests and information about airport security laying around, because that's the kind of thing you have if you're....

...I got nothing. You?

[madfilkentist]

If they wanted electronic devices to use as detonators, there are much cheaper ways to get them than prepaid TracFones, which cost (IIRC) $50 and up. This sounds to me like typical government lunacy.

Governments seem to have had an obsession with cell phones since they were used as detonators in the British rail attacks. A major tunnel to New York turned off its cell phone service (which does nothing to prevent a phone from being used as a detonator) to prevent something or other by terrorists; I don't know if they've turned it back on yet.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Turning off the cell phone service in the tunnel prevents a phone receiving calls in that tunnel, yes? That prevents the remote detonation by phone call scenario from taking place in that tunnel. I don't know if that's likely enough to be worth protecting against, but it certainly prevents the scenario.

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

Here in the Dallas area, the demand for prepaid phones is very high, between the gangs, and the working poor. If you've got crap credit, it's very hard to get anything other than a prepaid phone, and of course everybody has to have a cell phone. Capitalism demands that a small number of people buy up the available retail prepaid phones and resell them at an inflated price to the people that really can't afford them in the first place.

Stupidity on their part to be caught with so many so far afield, especially given their ethinic origin at this time in this place, but not necessarily terrorism. But, of course, the US is so caught up in fear and panic that anything anybody does anymore is viewed with suspicion.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

An ongoing problem, that. And it seems like some on Parliament Hill here in Ottawa(and elsewhere outside of Canada) are working to encourage Canadians to behave in like fashion. Most annoying.

[kengr]

The comment about cell phone batteries containing chemicals that can be used to make meth is rather telling. Yiu see, the chemicals in question are far more trouble than they are worth to get out. Especially when you can buy them by the *gallon* in most stores ("drain cleaner")

That tells me that they are *really* reaching.

The main reason the authorities woul;dn't like this sort of purchase is because if they resell such phones, it's harder to track who is using them. They don't like the pre-paid "throwaway phones to start with. But anything making it harder to connect them with a particular person just makes it worse.

There *could* be something going on, but frankly, there's no *need* to buy in that sort of quantity for use as detonators.

Use for hard to trace calls is a very different matter. And a lot harder to sell to a jury.