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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."
Yeah, but it might help the coppers catch the stupid criminals who don't have fake ids, or screw up and use their real one. Assuming they have a real one, of course.
The police seem perfectly able to hunt down the owner of a prepaid cellphone when it contains child porn on it. How can they manage that yet not hunt down terrorists the same way?
It's not infringing on their liberties that is the problem, it's infringing on my liberties that is. All it takes to infringe on their liberties is a warrant or a court order. In order to infringe on my liberties you better be amending the constitution because anonymous speech is the only way to have truly free speech.
You do NOT need to give the phone company an ID for a landline.
Last time I had a landline, all they needed was a cash deposit of around $100.
I gave them a completely bogus name because I didn't want to pay extra to have my name removed from the phonebook (nor did I want to be on the list of people who have paid to keep their name out of the phone book either).
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
but this sort of ignorance needs to be corrected.
There is no such thing as a "gun show loophole".
At a gun show (in any relatively free state), private citizens can purchase from other private citizens without a background check. Neither is in the business of selling firearms, so no paperwork is required. (The dealers at the show must continue to follow all the same laws and procedures that they do back at their shop.)
You can do the same thing at a garage/yard sale. I've gotten some of my best buys at such places. Every time I stop to look at the computer or audio equipment people have put out in their driveway, I never fail to ask "You got any guns?"
You can do the same thing on a person-to-person basis. I've seen someone try to sell a gun to a pawnbroker who refused to give them enough money. The person walked out the door. That didn't stop me from following them out and offering to buy the gun.
You can do the same thing via the want ads in the newspaper. I've bought many guns from people in my town via that method.
You can do the same thing via an online meet-up. I've met people in internet forums who had a gun I was interested in. If they live in the same state as me and we can agree on a price, we both get in our cars and meet at some spot roughly halfway between our two houses. The last gun I bought was in the lobby of a Days Inn (I think; it was one of those cut-rate, business-travel hotels).
In free states, any two people who can legally own guns can trade them for money.
Big freakin' deal!
There is absoutely nothing special about gun shows. There is no "gun show loophole".
The politicians and anti-freedom activists who complain about the fictitious "gun show loophole" are people who simply want to outlaw all private, unregistered sales.