Slashdot Mirror
Proposed Law Would Require ID To Buy Prepaid Phones
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have introduced legislation that would require buyers to present identification when purchasing a prepaid cellphone and require phone companies to keep the information on file, as they do with users of landline phones and subscription-based cellphones. 'This proposal is overdue because for years, terrorists, drug kingpins, and gang members have stayed one step ahead of the law by using prepaid phones that are hard to trace,' says Schumer. Civil liberties advocates have concerns about the proposal, saying there must be a role for anonymous communications in a free society, adding that the space for such anonymous or pseudonymous communications has been narrowed since pay phones, for example, have largely disappeared."
It seems to me that requiring the presentation of ID before purchasing something for the purpose of associating it with an identity for future use won't work as there's no way that you can guarantee the identity the person presents is genuine. All this law will do is encourage people to present fake identification when purchasing said goods, especially if they're going to use them for nefarious purposes.
This is already being done in India and South Africa (where prepaid phones are everywhere and contract phones are nearly non-existent) and it's retarded. I am American and I travel into and out of South Africa all the time and no-one wants to sell me a SIM card. You have to be able to prove residence in South Africa to get one and I live in Mozambique (and Botswana beforehand). Theft is RAMPANT in SA and people think having a name on file of who the phone's number is will stop anything? I have to find a South African who will buy me a SIM card any time I need to call from within SA.
India implemented this law before they had their terrorist attacks last year and it sure did a lot to prevent those eh?
A few years back, you could buy prepaid phones in Norway without any ID, but then they made a law so that all prepaid cards had to be registered with social security number. It is now harder for most mindless criminals to call anonymously, so they use their own names and get caught easily. The more clever ones simply use other peoples social security numbers when they want anonymous (for them) prepaid numbers.
Because of the latter, I am concerned about the consequences. Maybe they should legalize drugs and get rid of the top reason why people would want a anonymous phone in the first place, but I can only dream.
Dvorak on Doomtech
Sorry, freedom and liberties do not come easily. You have to fight to get them, fight to keep them, and live in a dangerous world. If you want to be safe at night then vote for Stalin. Oh wait....
Of course it would take a piece of legislation that completely tramples anonymous communication to convince two congressmen from two very different states to put aside partisan politics and play ball together. Why is it that the politicos can only team up on things that screw the citizens, but not the ones that help the citizens? Fucking assholes.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
I see a revolution or civil war happening long before a political solution would ever arise.
Remember to maintain your supply of
What it will do is enable the government (for whatever hair-brained reasons) to track LAW ABIDING citizens. Criminals, those people bent on breaking the law, will simply buy the phones off-market or use falsified documentation.
Yet another brilliantly thought-out law which misses mark entirely. Maybe someday only criminals will have rights and everyone else will be guilty until proven innocent?
Quack, quack.
People made the same arguments against POS background checks for firearms but we still wound up with those....
Never underestimate the amount of liberty that people are willing to sacrifice in exchange for the illusion of security.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Uh, hello?
You don't trample over the rights of innocent citizens to catch the "bad guys". That is the example of bad law, such as the proposed law. This would neither a:make it easier to track people nor b:confirm the person registering is who they are. There is no way to enforce as such, as others have mentioned. Fake ID's, phones registered via proxies (such as other people), there are a million ways to get around this that take minimal to no effort.
Instead, you go through this thing which already exists, it's called the court/justice system. It's worked for hundreds of years, last I checked. Especially given that it's assuming this is for law enforcement or another legal entity which should be well versed in following the laws which govern them.
You know, you can track people via those warrant things already. It's called warrants for wiretaps or you can do the pen register thing, if I recall loopholes for that still exist. /what a newfangled idea! *facepalm*
Ok. This new "law" would simply create a new black market for thieves. Increasing their profit streams.
Of course. Then the laws can become even MORE encroaching and overreaching in the name of stamping out whatever newly made illicit activity is.
More Twoson than Cupertino
A gun, on the other hand, can kill people right out of the store.
That's completely irrelevant to the argument that I was making and contributes nothing to this conversation. POS background checks don't catch people that kill, nor will a POS ID check for disposable cell phones catch criminals. Criminals will simply do with cell phones what they currently do with guns -- steal them or bribe others to purchase them on their behalf.
The end result will be the same that it was with firearms -- the law abiding people cede more power to the state while the criminals go about their business as they always have and always will.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A gun, on the other hand, can kill people right out of the store.
So can a car, most cleaners that you use in your household, various drugs you buy at the pharmacy (over the counter), a baseball bat, a golf club, a nail gun, a car battery, anti-freeze, a kitchen knife set, and so on and so on and so on. Just because something can be used to kill a person doesn't mean it will be used to kill a person. Just sayin'
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
He's saying that the original intent of the interstate commerce clause wasn't to grant Congress the power to control what we could purchase. It was to enable Congress to prevent the individual states from setting up trade barriers with one another, i.e: New York imposes a tariff on goods made in Pennsylvania.
Somehow I doubt that the framers imagined it being used to pass legislation compelling all Americans to purchase something from private enterprise (the health insurance mandate) or telling them that they can't indulge in cannabis consumption in the privacy of their own homes.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Step 1: Pay a teenager double the cost of the phone to buy the phone with his identity.
Step 2: Have teenager report the phone as stolen.
Step 3: Sell to terrorist @ 3x the cost of the phone.
Step 4: PROFIT.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I would think that it's more important to prove you can vote than show an id to buy a tracfone. Obviously, Chuckie doesn't. jerry
"Software is the difference between hardware and reality"
Really, don't you people realise the only way to achieve the latter is to have that dreadful power of control what you can purchase?
Bullshit. Congress can prohibit the states from putting up artificial barriers to trade without having the power to tell me that I can't grow my own wheat or cannabis.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
it has always been a struggle, and always it will be.
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
John Philpot Curran, 1790
If you must rely on anonimity to have free soeech, then you already don't have much of it.
True. However, anonymity is the last guard against complete loss of free speech, and it is the easiest one to protect via legal means. Someone is either anonymous or isn't - this doesn't depend on local customs of anonymity, or on what is acceptable anonymity or not.
This is why the ability to say things anonymously is so important. Even if assholes run the show and try to use stupid laws to silence you, if they can't find you, they can't silence you.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.