This is already being invoked by opponents of profiling as an object lesson in the hazards of assuming that Muslims engaging in suspicious activity are up to no good. But you'll notice that there is still a great deal unexplained in the case; and anyway if Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan are loyal Americans, surely they would prefer to be inconvenienced rather than to see the country suffer another jihad terror attack. An update on this story from AP:
(AP) MARIETTA, Ohio Prosecutors dropped terrorism charges Tuesday against two Michigan men who were arrested after buying large numbers of cell phones, saying they couldn't prove a terrorism link.The dismissal, in a one-page court document, came the day after Washington County Prosecutor James Schneider said he didn't have enough evidence to present the felony charges to a grand jury.
Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, both of Dearborn, Mich., left prison after paying a reduced bond on the remaining misdemeanor counts of falsification.
"We know it was just a matter of time. We were just hoping it wouldn't be forever," Abulhassan said. "Everybody knew we were innocent. We knew we were innocent."
The remaining counts stem from allegations that the two men initially gave deputies different names than appeared on their IDs. The men also initially said they were buying phones for a relative's construction business, then changed the story when deputies asked for contact information, Schneider said.
Schneider said his office and federal authorities don't believe "the defendants pose an imminent threat at this time."
But he said the investigation remains open and he could still present evidence to a grand jury to pursue terrorism-related charges....
In Ohio, Houssaiky and Abulhassan were stopped by sheriff's deputies for a traffic violation Aug. 8, then arrested after the deputies found 12 cell phones, $11,000 cash, airplane passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints in their car, authorities said.
lying to the police and providing false ids---DEPORT THEM NOW.!!!
Nah …we can’t deport these fine, upstanding citizens. They haven’t done anything wrong, have they? Is it a crime to buy up cellphones? Is it a crime to have a couple thousand in cash on you, maps to Walmart locations, and a thousand or so cellphones in your vehicle …? Heck, no! Of course not!
I, personally, can’t wait to see what they’re planning and plotting. I know it won’t be good and, if they had it their way, a lot of innocent people would die, but …the moment they strike I can at least tell a whole group of friends “See? I told you so!”
We deserve to be attacked repeatedly until we 'get it'.
If I lived in Michigan I'd be scared... if I lived in Dearborn I'd be selling the house.
do you remember the 9/11 terrorists:??
a few of them were stopped on seeming insignificant traffic violations and other police related items and no one did anything
No links to terrorism.
Islamic males. Attend mosques. Massive amount of cell phones. Lying to police. Live in a terrorist area.
If I can connect the dots.....why can't those we NEED to connect them, do the same?
Great.
Way to go Homeland America Police.
That's it... hold the line...Let's get really tough with these mosque attending Islamic males who are buying overly normal amounts of detonator cell phones....
Obviously these geniuses never got into studying any higher logic than basic arithmetic that might support any type of abstract logic.
No wonder the tv parses out the news. we deserve it.
here in a post - 9/11 world, our justice system still operates with a pre-1938 midset.
in what world would anyone need 1000 cell phones? they wouldn't work overseas because the network differences (right?)
one floated theory is that they buy them and then sell them to gang bangers, drug dealers, illegals, and any other underworld types that have a need for untraceable cell phones..and yes, that includes terrorists.
i think another bad precident has just been established that if a suspected terrorists can not be tied to any formally recognized terrorist group, then they can't be charged under suspicion of terrorism. wtf?
Looks like the boys from ‘Dearbornistan’ managed to slither out from under the lamp of scrutiny. After all: they’re just your average, all-American boys from Any-Town-Ville. Think nothing of it! All is well in Wellsville! Home Land Security has everything under control.
Nah…nothing at all to see here, folks. Just move along now.
[head in hands, shaking]
The degree of anesthesia under which these "justice system workers" are operating is so deep.
Where are the internal alerts to them from our own alert-based agencies to recognize patterns of behavior and coordinate accordingly?
JDS. JDS. JDS. JDS. JDS. JDS. JDS. JDS. JDS.
I don’t know what the prosecutors are supposed to do. I doubt that Washington County, Ohio has the funds for a major investigation. They have to rely on the FBI.
Simply buying cell phones is not a crime. It is merely a suspicious activity. Even coupled with the other suspicious stuff in the car, it is not a crime. You can’t take suspicious activity to the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt” level for a conviction. Better to let them go today and continue to investigate.
I think they ought find a way to bug these guys. It would never (and should not be) a matter to public knowledge, but I would expect these birds to be under serious surveillance by the FBI, phone taps, computer taps, the whole shebang -- including surveillance of their local Mosque.
Part of the problem is that enforcers of the law have to have a law. They can't 'make it up as they go along'... you know, like how LSD was legal during the summer of love simply because it wasn't mentioned in codified law at the time.
We need the legislative branch to get busy codifying are we need to take a cue from allah and 'put others in their place' so that the Feds & local cops have something to work with here.
"The men had been held on $200,000 bond, but that was reduced to $1,000 each."
Wow! That leaves them with $9000.00 to go get more phones with! What a deal!
I hope someone is assigned to tail these profiling victims...
-XRDC
viahj -
You wrote:
"...one floated theory is that they buy them and then sell them to gang bangers, drug dealers, illegals, and any other underworld types that have a need for untraceable cell phones..."
That might be a consideration IF there were also individuals of other descent than middle-eastern doing the dirty work. Who else has been "profiled" or even seen making these types of purchases lately?
By the time legislation could hamper efforts to make these kind of purchases, these clowns will all have reached their goal.
-XRDC
In Dearborn, there seems to be two distinct ideologies in the Caucasian population- those who grew up there are well aware of the illegal activities, but are afraid to do anything about it because of potential reprisals, and those would rather have an Arabic population rather than another minority since they think they'll be less general crime with Muslims in their neighborhood.
As for the threat potential, many believe Dearborn is the safest area in the nation- the local reasoning seems to be that any area terrorists won't target their own community. There are also those that believe there is no terrorist threat at all- it's a complete invention of the Bush administration.
well shucks America is destroyed and taken over by Islam but by golly we held to our core values right up until the END, because we take the "higher moral ground", lets take a chance and let thousands of innocent Americans die including children, because we are so civil and lets even let terrorists have their day in our courts with attorney fee's paid by American tax dollar, because we are so "civil and kind and moral"...some one said above we deserve what we get, yes because we let it happen by our false sense extending goodness, morals, values in teh face of our own detriment and extinction, history will show Amrican was "nice" but dumb.
LOL, and on this day, your beloved President is making a photo op appearance in the Homeland Security Headquarters. and has backpedaled on Islamic Fascists, now they are a "bunch of extremist folk bound together by an ideology".
Enjoy the man and party you all voted (and will vote for).. at least he's against stem cell research and gay marriage..and that's all that is really important (in America and ironically in Iran) LOL.
The Madrid bombings, two years ago, were not suicide bombings. They were backpacks stowed on the commuter trains and were triggered by CELL PHONES. There were 13 known bombs planted - 10 of which detonated.
The New York subways have been targets in foiled terrorist plots. Given the airliners are difficult targets to penetrate, we should expect that commuter trains and other land targets will be easier for the terrorists, and more desirable if they don't have to die themselves in the explosions - just "dial M for murder".
Madrid and London and Mumbai,India were successes for them, and New York and many other cities' trains are relatively easy to target anywhere. Also, the multiple daily car bombs going off in Iraq could easily start here as well.
If THOUSANDS of cell phones are being purchased by suspects, and might be used for bombings, consider the magnitude of what could happen.
Nariz wrote:
The man...you all voted (and will vote for)..
Your message is a couple years too late to make any sense. But who would ever accuse you of that, right?
-XRDC
Everybody is making a fuss about the cell phones, which could of course be legitimate.
I am much more interested in the $11,000 cash, airplane passenger lists, and "information on airport security checkpoints", which are decidedly suspicious. What conceivable use could they put these to, I wonder?
Nariz:
I wish the Democrat opposition would take Bush to task about his being soft on Islam, and security. BUT, the Democrats in Connecticut just voted out Lieberman. The faaaarrrr left is getting control of the Democrat primaries, and we might expect to see apologies to Osama bin Laden as a plank in the platform of the next Democrat National Convention.
We have a famine of leadership in the USA. After Bush we don't see anyone to truly lead and face the brewing storm.
There is a "perfect storm" of Islam that will soon come together in the next few years. - The Taliban is gaining ground in Afghanistan, Al Quaeda has just taken over Somalia and is heading for Ethiopia. Pakistan already has the bomb and is only one life away from becoming an enemy when Mushariff passes away. Iran will get the bomb shortly. N.Korea will have the bomb and is likely to sell it to others along with their missles, etc., etc..
Also, the trillions of dollars in oil money has allowed the Saudis to seed most countries with militant mosques, and faciltate and radicalize the muslim demographic expansion - look how many Pro-Hezbollah demonstrations we just had in the USA and other non-muslim countries.
Israel has just caved to Hezbollah, and the USA will likely cave in Iraq. Non-muslim countries prefer to paint the USA as the world's greatest threat, and characters like Hugo Chavez are setting up arms deals with Muslim countries, and identifying the USA as their enemy too.
All this comes together in a perfect storm to face the next president and his administration.
Do you see any Democrats ready to lead and face this?
Black ops or "Star Chamber"?
Time for the free world to wise up.
Lying Muslims in their late teens and early twenties......Say it isn't so
Star Chamber.
Paul beat me to it:
If they are merely businessmen buying and re-selling phones, why lie to the police, why give false identities, why have "information on airport security checkpoints"?
If it's not a crime to gather bomb-making materials and lie to the police who are investigating it, why not? What about this "Patriot Act" that allows the government to find out what books I have checked out from the library and to listen to my phone calls? You mean it doesn't focus on punishing pre-wmd preparations? Huh?
And, to whom are they going to sell these phones that they have dissassembled into pieces? Are there some drug dealers who are unable to find a Wal-Mart within driving distance (they are only a little less numerous than Starbucks)? Why pay marked-up prices for dissassembled Wal-Mart merchandise?
What's wrong with you folks ? Airplane passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints is what I receive every morning on my cellphone, just like weather forecast. Nothing unusal there. The 1000 cellphones that were being taken apart ? Er, let me think...
These guys lied to police in the course of the investigation. They should now be arrested, indicted and tried for obstruction of justice.
Martha Stewart was sent to prison for exactly the same thing. She did not commit the underlying crime of insider trading, but lied to investigators in the course of being interviewed.
In any event, I hope the detention time was enough for the authorities to search the homes and computers of these guys.
I have looked into this business about bulk buying of mobile phones. At first it does sound dodgey, but there may be a innocent explanation. Take a look at the following explanation of why these guys are buying in bulk (http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/08/13/072734.php):
This story is too funny. Does everyone realize the FBI, DOJ and Dept. of Homeland Security have DROPPED this! No longer interrogating, not investigating, not charging not taking immediate custody.
You got Jewish, Irish, African American, Korean kids doing the exact same thing -- buying tracfones in the massive numbers.
They are bought for $20 and sold for parts for $40 and it is legal.
Some of the above comments are idiotic. EG
1) removing the batteries proves they are terorists since you can make crystal meth with cell phone batteries (oops these are liIon batteries and you can't)
2) the phones will be used as detonators. oops not if the batteries are removed!
here is what the are doing and it is totally legal and lots of people do it with hardware that is sold at a loss in order to gain future service (minutes buys) and is worth more in parts
1) included phone card with minutes credit at current walmart promotion of 100 nationwide minutes that actually nets 360 after bonus and referals. legally fully transferable to existing tracfones, retail value fo $30 or more and easy to sell at street price of $25.
2) Battery on ebay $9 (current)
3) charger on ebay $3 (current)
4) phone shell to guys who sent them to china to harvest material, $2
The local authorities are on a witch hunt that gets obviouly more desperate every moment. first it is detonators, then it is meth (lol) the it is attacking a bridge by what throwing a hundreds of cell phones?
How about they are college kids who are capitalists? no ethically different from investors who buy comapanies ato break them up to sell of a profit.
Look at all the crap coming out that is confusing people:
Why did they throw away the chargers and batteries? How does that profit for either resale or detonation?
they didn't throw away the batteries they removed them and had them in a seperate box in there van. that shows they were not going to beus used for detonation, but most likly for resale. there are guys in ebay selling them in large lots.
Why did they get the 400 minute Tracfones when the ordinary 60 minute Tracfones are $20 everyday at Office depot? It would seem that 60 minutes is plenty for use as a detonator.
They got the 360 minute tracjones at wallmart last week -- just like a lot of other kids doing bulk buyuing.120 minutes on the card, 120 bonus, 120 referal.
Why would someone pay $38 for a Tracfone that's $20 at WalMart?
It is a total of $38.
Today I can go to a dozen walmarts and other box stores and buy hundreds of tracphones for cash and I am committing NO illigal act.
I can remove the cards which contain minutes that are legally transferable to any exisitng tracfone and sell them for $25 a peice easy.
The shell of the phone is not usable as a phone since it is now illegal to break trakfones special lock, but I won the phone outright and can sell it for material recovery (silver etc) for $2 or so to guys who send them to china.
I take the batteries and sell myself on ebay for $10 or to a wholesaler on ebay (there are many) who buys them for $8.
Ditto charger for a couple of bucks.
Look at this, people noticed that tracphone walmart deal about a week ago.
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=705274
Like other huge pricing differentials the big opportunity for savings was also noted on boards such as slickdeals which is populated by people looking for deep discounts and who often buy in bulk to resell.
There seems to be a lot about this case that we don't know.
we do know the FBI has figured out these guys are legally hustling and is no longer involved and that says EVERYTHING we need to know.
Well just because the FBI let them go does not mean they are not still interested in them.
My guess the those three young jihadist can't even play with themselves now without somebody in the government knowing.
These guys are just the bottom rung on the islamic terror ladder , hopefully they will mess up and lead the FBI to some higher ups.
Jack, it sounds great! Money for nothing, and your chicks for free. If it makes sense to make money by dissassembling products and then selling the parts, then why do the manufacturers bother to assemble them in the first place? Why not just sell the parts? Under what economic theory does it make sense to spend resources to put something together and then spend resources to take it back apart?
But assuming this all made sense, what is the part that explains lying to the police and giving false ID's, if they are simply honest businessmen?
And how do the diagrams of airport security fit into a cellphone dissassembly business?
You claim that the FBI decided they were honest businessmen. I think what we know is that the FBI decided there was insufficient evidence. Proving someone's intentions beyond a doubt is tricky.
BREAKING NEWS
There has been a suspicious rise in sales of DELL laptops.
Store owners throughout the UK have noted a large percentage increase in sales of Dell Laptops over the last couple of days.
Mark Ridley of PC World in Birmingham said "we definately have noticed an increase of sales of Dell Laptops which runs contrary to expectations considering the recent reports. We are also baffled by the specific request that they contain Sony batteries."
When asked about the buyers he noted that they were "of Middle Eastern appearance".
More Soon
Special Guest
The company selling the phone does so at an initial loss. That is, the phone hardware is worth more than they are selling it for. The way the company makes money is by selling "talk time". They lure you into buying the hardware at a cut down price, and then make their money each time you go back to them to buy more "talk time".
Some budding capitalist has worked out that by selling the parts seperately along with the free "talk time" that is bundled-in with the initial purchase, they can make a good profit.
The business about the airport documentation has been explained by the fact that the Mother of the two lads worked at the airport and that they were part of a training course run by the airport. This can be easily verified by the Police, and I assume they have done that and are satisfied.
Nothing I've said of course explains why they lied to Police.
Okay, how about this....cell phones, multiple purchases, about which, we've been told, they can be used to activate bombs, and eerily enough, there is a spike in purchases, by Arab descent persons purchasing dell laptops and requesting sony batteries.....Sounds like a wierd cocktail to me. Leads me to wonder if the "recall" has anything to do with the sales spike.
This is all making me wonder what came first, the suspicious activity and battery request or the recall.......Did one prompt the other?