It's not actually a contrarian view. Hacker News, the comments section of The Register, and other places where one might expect a larger proportion of the readership to know how telecommunications actually works, are all covering these same points.
The involvement of the politicians was someone that was using this kit almost certainly for some minor side-line, as one does not need expensive kit capable of transmitting thousands of simultaneous messages from sites in three states in order to send hoax police reports.
Indeed, the people whose operations (most probably high volume scamming, or some kind of dodgy telecommunications carrier) were primarily the purpose of this kit are probably rather cross with whoever it was who saw this kit as an opportunity for pursuing their own ends. It's the old found-major-criminal-through-a-broken-tail-light story.
The involvement of the politicians was someone that was using this kit almost certainly for some minor side-line, as one does not need expensive kit capable of transmitting thousands of simultaneous messages from sites in three states in order to send hoax police reports.
Indeed, the people whose operations (most probably high volume scamming, or some kind of dodgy telecommunications carrier) were primarily the purpose of this kit are probably rather cross with whoever it was who saw this kit as an opportunity for pursuing their own ends. It's the old found-major-criminal-through-a-broken-tail-light story.