Profiled: Better safe than sorry

I have two words for the Wal-Mart clerk who notified cops in Michigan after three young Arab men purchased 80 cell phones at 1:00am on August 11 in cash:

Thank you.

FBI spokesmen and DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff may not have the guts to admit that national security profiling is going on, but vigilant citizens are doing what all common-sense Americans unafraid of CAIR temper tantrums should do:

Reporting suspicious behavior and refusing to look the over way.

In the immediate aftermath of the UK mass air jihadi plot unraveling, it would have been unforgivable for a store clerk to be quiet about the arrested men’s activities. Let the grievance-mongers whine about discrimination. This was not solely about the suspects’ ethnicity. It was about their behavior. Now, law enforcement officials say a plot to bomb the Mackinac Bridge may have been in the works. Lots of troubling details here:

Three Texas men suspected of targeting the Mackinac Bridge remained in jail Sunday on two terrorism charges as prosecutors set a pre-trial court hearing for Friday, police said.

Prosecutors arraigned the three Texas men Saturday in Caro on felony terrorism charges after police found about 1,000 cell phones in their van in the state’s Thumb area.

Maruan Muhareb, 18, Adham Othman, 21, and Louai Othman, 23, were charged by Tuscola County prosecutors with providing material support for terrorist acts and terrorism surveillance of a vulnerable target, said Sgt. Curtis Chambers of the Tuscola County Sheriff’s Department. They were each being held on $750,000 bond.

Investigators said they were concerned that the men could be targeting the landmark bridge that connects Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsulas, said Cpl. Mark House of the sheriff’s department. He declined to elaborate.

In recent months, federal investigators have worried about men buying up large numbers of cell phones, which police said could be used to detonate bombs in terrorist acts…

…

Police found about 1,000 cell phones in the van. They also found receipts indicating that other phones were bought in Wisconsin the day before.

Police also noted that the men had thrown away many of the phone chargers, indicating that they may have intended to send the phones out of the country because different outlets are used overseas. There were about 120 phones packed per box in their van, police said.

The three told police they were buying the phones to sell them to another man, who might send them to foreign countries.

Police Lt. Shannon Greenhaw of Mesquite, Texas, said at least one of the men had an address in Mesquite, a suburb of Dallas. She did not know if all three lived there.

The police department “gave the FBI information some time ago,” she said, but did not elaborate.

“We don’t know if they are terrorists or not. That is for the FBI’s terror task force to determine.”

The FBI has interviewed the men, but federal charges have not been filed. FBI agents could not be reached for comment.

There was no evidence that the three Texas men are connected to two Dearborn men found with hundreds of cell phones in Ohio last week. Ali Houssaiky and Osama Abulhassan, both 20 and Lebanese-American, were arrested after they bought hundreds of cell phones. Their families said the men were targeted because of their ethnicity.

The Texas men also are of Arab descent, with Palestinian ancestry, police said.

Maybe it’s run-of-the-mill shady business. Maybe it’s much more nefarious. But as I’ve said before, it’s time the Left took its love of the precautionary principle (”better safe than sorry”) and applied it to homeland security with as much zeal as they apply it to eco-activism. Hurt feelings are nothing compared to the horrific damage that can result from fear of offending.

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Dearbornistan men bought cell phone microchips
Late-night tracfone shopping sprees
The Dearbornistan duo
Dearbornistan terror arrests: Flight docs and 600+ tracphones

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