RE: 3 Arrested on Terrorism Charges in Mich. for buyingprepaid cellphones

[Drsolly <drsollyp () drsolly com>]

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006, Larry Seltzer wrote:

> > > http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=104&sid=879155 
>
> Another story I read said when they were taken they had opened all the
> packages and had collected the phones. It didn't sound like a good
> resale strategy. 

That depends on your strategy. 

Suppose you were planning to sell them in a street market, for example.  
They'd advertise that they are really cheap (which they would be) and
environmentally friendly, because without packaging. Pile them high and
sell them cheap - possibly out of a suitcase. Maybe even Del-boy
fly-trading, which is possibly illegal (fine $10), but not terrorism.

Or maybe they planned to export them to Canada, and the transportation 
costs are less if you discard all the polystyrene packaging filler.

Or maybe they were planning to sell them on Ebay, and then the postage 
costs to send them to the buyer would be less without the packaging.
 
> I can't imagine the substance of what they could be charged with, but
> they certainly sound dirty.

They could perhaps be charged with "Having a beard that makes them look
vaguely like a terrorist" (if at least one of them is bearded), or
"wearing hats with intent to look different and thereby not looking like
their identity picture" (if necessary, the police could "find" a hat in
their van, or allege that the carrying case for the laptop "could be used
as a hat"). They don't sound dirty to me, they sound like good, honest
entrepreneurs, capitalists in the finest British tradition.

If there's more to this than "some guys bought some cheap phones and
contravened the Walmart policy of three per customer", I haven't heard it
yet.

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