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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."
I guess we couldn't use fake IDs to circumvent this, now could we?
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.
"Um, hey, Fred, while you're at Best Buy, could you pick me up a throwaway phone? I'm going on vacation and don't want to
take my RAZR with me to jihad-camp"
Sigh. Security theatre is not secure.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
But what will Michael do in his crazy antics in Miami? He usually needs like 3 prepaid phones for every job. It will kill off one my favorite shows!
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The wire called, they want their idea back.
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?
I don't get it. are you saying you can't do it now??
Here's how you do it: it's called go through the court system as you should.
Clearly, the only people who would object to such legislation are criminals.
Those of us who aren't doing anything illegal would have absolutely no reason to fear the loss of anonymous communication.
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....
This law was passed in Mexico a few months ago. It's basically a failure because of all the fake IDs out there. There's very little preventing you from registering it to someone else's name too.
To send a message to the president Felipe Calderon, a lot of people registered using his personal data.
A few days ago, one of the phone companies admitted they had at least 12,000 cell phones registered to the president's name...
It will be justified under the 'interstate commerce' clause, the catch all used to justify everything from compelling Americans to buy health insurance to telling them that they can't set dried up bits of cannabis on fire and inhale the resulting smoke into their lungs. Any pretense of a limitation on Federal power died when SCOTUS said that the Federal Government has the power to prevent you from growing food for your own consumption.
I'm rather pessimistic about our chances of reversing this trend, absent a constitutional convention and/or revolution, neither of which will happen because both would require Americans to stop watching TV long enough to realize how many rights they are losing.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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?
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.
What about those of us who already have prepaid phones bought with cash? It's one of the things I like about Boost Mobile; they can't track me.
You don't need a phone to buy an SUV, only money. What's next, they're going to outlaw cash?
The "drug kingpins" part made me laugh; it isn't the kingpins, it's the neighborhood dealers. And this won't stop anybody, dope dealers routinely "rent" other people's cars to make deliveries, they'll simply trade drugs for an AT&T iPhone. Hell, they're doing it already.
What did law enforcement do before telephones were invented?
And this stupid law will actually hurt law enforcement -- now, they have people anonymously make tips (narc on people) to make arrests. Without untraceable communications, folks are going to be less likely to tip someone off, especially here in Illinois where cops and politicians are notoriously crooked. Nobody in his right mind would narc using a traceable form of communication; that could turn out to be fatal. A whole lot of cops are on the dope dealers' payrolls.
Like the drug laws themselves, this will cause the very problems it purports to solve.
Free Martian Whores!
No mo' whistleblowers.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Why does it always have to be a "fight"?... (I catch what you're saying; but a society apparently spawning the habit of presenting everything as a fight has another set of problems)
One that hath name thou can not otter
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.
Ok. This new "law" would simply create a new black market for thieves. Increasing their profit streams.
Now instead of a walmart tracphone. you buy a "clean" prepaid phone from vito that is registered to a 14 year old cheerleader in the hamptons.
Honestly, are out lawmakers simply a bunch of retarded old idiots? Did they not think of this?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
Expect equal or better signal while using a foreign SIM (because you get to choose a network,e.g. AT&T or T-mobile, instead of being tied to just one).
And expect to pay a lot for roaming.
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
If your SIM was purchased outside the United States, expect zero bars of signal.
Of course. I hadn't thought of that. Must have been pure luck and happenstance that my UK mobile worked a treat when I rocked up in the US.
Get a pre-paid 'phone from anywhere non-US and use it in the US. Perhaps a bit expensive but I don't suppose the criminal underworld will be too upset about that.
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
Over the years, we as a society have become very good at dismantling civil unrest. I don't think a civil war or revolution would be successful.
If you must rely on anonimity to have free soeech, then you already don't have much of it. Not more than people in China or Iran.
One that hath name thou can not otter
In Italy you have to present your ID even when in internet cafes. It will be photocopied and kept forever along with your IP. And there is no open Wi-Fi anywhere, because any internet user must be identified (there are free hotspots that require your local GSM number and verify it by sending you a code).
Of course you can't buy any prepaid SIM without your ID or passport (and often fiscal code).
I guess USA is slowly getting there too.
Contrary to what the Senators are saying, this bill has NOTHING to do with catching drug kingpins, and everything to do with advancing the surveillance state.
Last year I bought a cheap 15 dollar Tracfone and activated it without a stitch of ID in rural Wisconsin. Plunked down the money and walked out of the Radio Shack with a working, anonymous phone. Don't need any ID to renew minutes either. Each time I walk into a RS and buy a minutes card it extends the validity of the number for 90 more days.
How does a warrant help if you don't know who is using a disposable phone?
I'd say on the outrage meter, this idea should be roundly welcomed with a rollback on the "Wide Net" wiretaps that are currently occuring!
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
This is easy to solve: just put a EULA with the phone requiring the purchaser not to use said phone for illegal purposes.
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
No appreciable hardship to corporate sponsors (in fact, forcing registration gives them a whole new dataset to mine and sell). Check.
Small chance of political backlash from constituents? (Off of slashdot, few seem to care about rights when it comes to tech). Check.
More power to abusive LEAs? Check.
Yep. This things already as good as passed.
Yes, and I'm certain that drug kingpins would buy the cellphone with their own, entirely legitimate photo ID.
Aye, you touch on a good point. This will just create a demand among criminals for freshly stolen phones. Steal a phone, use it illegally for a day or two and toss it in a greyhound bus bound for opposite coast to fuck with gps surveillance attempts.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
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.
It's true that anonymous speech shouldn't be necessary in and of itself. But as part of a larger system of free speech it is essential, it acts as the last sanity check on the system such that if everything else is taken away, anonymous speech remains simply by virtue of being the hardest to take away.
I have just finished watching The Wire on DVD(A cop drama set in Baltimore).
Not only do I rate this series as one of my top 5 dramas made globally, I think it is as significant for nerds as Star Trek.
Cell phones play a key aspect of the story line over the 5 series from 2002 to 2008, and includes the formation of the Dept Home Land Security and the impact on the police team and how it helps there investigations(by season 3-4).
The police efforts to track criminals and the criminals attempts to stay one step ahead is well dramatized.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
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!
Thank you for making slashdot that much dumber.
Dumber than when an Anonymous Coward trolls hard for tougher laws against privacy? While your thinking about your own hypocrisy, chew on this for a while: it is possible to find criminals without making businesses keep Orwellian records of their customers. I'd quote Benjamin Franklin, but I'd wager that the quote is already in this thread already.
Yep. One of them has a Constitutional guarantee against the right to bear being infringed, and the other doesn't. Not just "congress shall make no law", a blanket "the right ... shall not be infringed." Can you guess which is which?
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.
Afterall, what self-respecting terrorist would jeopardize their credit rating by not paying their bill?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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.
assuming you overlook the glaring exception of the "Gun Show" loophole in many states.
The "gun show loophole" actually isn't. It's more properly described as a "private party sale loophole". Any business engaged in the routine sale of firearms needs to perform background checks, regardless of where that sale takes place. If you buy a gun from "Gun Store, Inc." at a gun show you'll fill out the same background check paperwork as you would if you were in the store itself.
Party party sales (i.e: I sell you one of my guns) aren't regulated in most states and don't require background checks. That's the loophole that people are referring to, but most of the anti-2A crowd won't call it a "private party loophole" because that doesn't conjure up scary images of unregulated gun shows.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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"
Sorry, I didn't expect you to erase my second line and then write it again in reply.
If this has any chance of succeeding, (which I am sure it does) I will definitely have to stock up on pre-paid phones prior to the law going into effect.
No, not because I want to do anything wrong, but because I want the option to be able to make anonymous phone calls whenever I feel like it -and with the way law enforcement operates it doesn;t matter if you've committed a crime or not, you can be jailed, beaten, strip searched - simply for asking a question or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I am well aware of the the capabilities of law enforcement, we're beyond triggerfish now - but there still is no technology that can pinpoint a phone with it's batteries removed. The best they could hope for is knowing where the phone was when a call was made.
I think that it is a little too big brother to require registering a cell phone to a person, but for a weapon, whose primary purpose is to injure... I think you need a reality check."
According to Schumer, et al, they want to track phones because they could be used (as well as by nefarious people doing *other* nefarious things) ... as part of weapons.
And while you could argue the semantics (purpose vs. use), I don't agree that the primary purpose of a weapon is *to* injure; it's to prevent injury from occurring.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
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.
Or what happens is the same thing that happened when pseudoephedrine. It was made where one had to put down a card, register and all that crap.
Of course this did absolutely nothing to stop the meth labs. They just sourced their stuff from Mexico, or if in the US; robbed the trucks before they got to the stores.
It will be exactly the same with phones and SIM cards. People will just source the anonymous phones from Mexico, and because a lot of people use Mexican SIM cards in the US, it won't cost them much more.
Even though this probably won't have the intended effect in the long run, it probably will do quite a bit to narrow down the use of prepaid cell phones for nefarious purposes. As it stands with gun laws, I'm certainly not willing to go into a sporting good store, buy a gun, and hand it over to someone I don't know, even if there is a boat-load of cash being offered. The same will probably happen with cell phones, if the punishment for handing out or carrying an unlicensed cell phone is strict enough. It's not worth it for most decent citizens to get caught up in the mess. This doesn't stop fake IDs, of course, but it would be pretty easy to compare a would-be cell-phone purchaser's ID to their address via DMV database or something similar, which would mean the fake ID would have to immitate a real person, including their address. If a notice was then sent to that person's house (Attention Mr./Ms. So-and-so, We have just recorded a new pre-paid cell phone to your name and address. If you believe this to be in error, please contact such-and-such security department...) and further cut down on abuse. Overall, this policy will probably be more effective than people imagine if it's implemented well (which it probably won't be).
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.
There's a US?!
Si senor, hay Estados Unidos!
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'
Just like all the items in that list, a gun is a very versatile tool with a wide variety of uses, and is not made for the sole purpose of killing.
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
criminals and terrorists actually have such a hard time faking ID ?
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.
I recently got off the Verizon teat and bought a prepaid phone (several, actually). No more contracts for me, thank you. Though I have 4 or 5 prepaids now, I use my Google Voice number with all of them. It makes it easy for my freinds and family to reach me no matter what phone I use. So what good would registering for a prepaid do, hmmm? I don't use the numbers assigned to the phone anyway. I guess they'll have to outlaw Google Voice.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
Well, at least it would be difficult for a drug kingpin to acquire the services of a desparate crackhead. Oh, wait ...
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The case you mention is a little disingenuous. He had no intention of consuming the wheat personally. He was feeding it to chickens. What I wonder is what he was doing with those chickens. If he was using them for personal consumption, I think he would have had an easier time, but I honestly don't know how many chicken can be fed on over 450 bushels of wheat per year (his quota and non-quota amount). It seems like a substantial amount to me.
That said, artificial scarcity, government manipulation of markets, etc., etc. One more repercussion from a dubious decision.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
..why is it that no one has a better idea or alternative; just rants on how it won't work. I'm not saying this just to flame bait - personally I think /. has some of the most intelligent folks I've read posts from. So how about coming up with some better alternatives? I'd just like to see some of the creative and experienced people here suggest some ideas rather than just bemoan the stupidity of others.
Not doing something is an alternative to doing it.
I am not a crackpot.
It's worded just fine.
[The Congress shall have power] to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes
You'll note that it doesn't say "require Commerce" (i.e: the individual mandate) or "prohibit commerce" (i.e: the controlled substances act, farm production quotas, etc.) The problem with the Constitution is that there's no way to account for idiots that will read shit into it that isn't there -- like the now debunked claim that the 2nd amendment only protected the right to join the National Guard.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Remember, in Korea, we were basically fighting to maintain the status quo ante
Then why did we advance to the Yalu?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It's a fight because it requires resisting the natural flow of society, which is AWAY from liberty. I would call going upstream on a river a fight.
The slothful nature of society as a whole the corruptive nature of power and money means that corrupt people are usually in leadership positions directing a mass of ignorant and lazy people. This does NOT cultivate liberty.
While I get that the term is overused, in context to preserving liberty, it sure as hell is a "fight." I look forward to a day when it isn't, but that's going to require a serious evolutionary leap among our primitive species.
"It's interesting that nobody has mentioned this snippet from TFA yet:
Privacy advocates worry that prepaid cellphone registration might be a step toward something even more worrisome in their view: identity registration to access the Internet.
How long until the security establishment starts pushing for that?"
In some places, they have! :)
Some people like to think of Government as a permanent theme park inside of which we live, and must be this tall to ride, and all the snacks are free of triglycerides; They have trouble understanding why anyone would object to this penumbra of beneficence and orderly, pre-made rules and outcomes ...
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
What if I -- assuming I were a terrorist or one of the other monsters-under-the-bed these legislators are trying to scare us with -- kill the teenager and just steal his phone regardless of the calling plan? As a corpse, he won't be reporting it stolen, and his parents are likely to keep the phone in service for a while in the hopes that dear Billy will call home eventually. I could collect several phones this way and even pull the batteries until just before I'm ready to blow up a building, score a big drug sale, rat on a local government official anonymously, or otherwise do something terrible.
No one should be required to show identification(ID) to purchase anything. I have no problem with business asking to see an ID when people use credit/debt cards, as it is a means of account holder security and that information is not kept on file. If I purchase something in cash, then I will never show my ID, except in cases where I purchase a firearm.
Felons, and other barred from owning a firearm, are the reason for showing an ID and the point of purchase. Of course, in a private sell I do not have to show ID. I do not agree with showing an ID in this case(as I believe we should "scarlet letter" felons and spouse/child abusers), but whatever.
Regardless, this is a fools dream and will only impact the people who abide by the law. Those that want a phone and to stay anonymous will continue to do so, if and when this bill become laws. I am just tired of the various government working to mass-grab our private information in the name of "security".
How about the U.S. Government just work on completely and utterly wiping our enemy off the map?
Hey, idiot... nice way to label yourself an intelligent, open-minded debater right off the start.
Lots of things can help catch criminals. Warrantless searches, warantless wiretaps, torture, indefinite pre-trial jail, no trial or kangaroo courts... Being opposed to all that does not mean being pro-crime. The issue is misuse of those rights by law enforcement agencies or anyone who has access to such powers. The police cannot be trusted to respect the spirit of the law, nor even the letter if they can get away with it. There's plenty of cases of violence, planted evidence, unfair trials... It may be worth wondering if we've not reached a point where all those "crime-fighting" measures are not more harmful to honnest citizens than actual crime is.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
One thing is certain, these knee jerk laws certainly erode the rights of citizens who in no way were part of the event causing the stupid reaction.
But really, since when has our government cared about freedom and rights? Being elected is a concern and getting tax money also is.
But like dogs, they seem to live entirely in the present and are incapable of extrapolating the long term consequences of all of these laws.
But they sure know how to raise Millions of Corporate contributions and note that these "sponsors" also have no stake in public freedoms.
Successful? It would never get off the ground -- participants would be labeled "terrorists" by federal and state governments, and the rest of our society would concur to avoid being labeled "terrorists" themselves. And the irony of a national aversion to revolution in the US would be completely ignored.
They're even shutting down prepaids unless they register, this, from the government that leaked the electoral records to organized crime.
But... the future refused to change.
This looks to me like just another case of politicians trying to protect their big contributors. Consider:
The legislation's sponsors are from Texas (Cornyn) and New York (Schumer).
AT&T is based in Texas. AT&T has given more political contributions than any other company. Its current COO, and its former CEO, both donated to Cornyn.
Verizon is based in New York. Verizon is also on OpenSecret's heavy hitters list at the above link. Verizon's CEO unsurprisingly donated to Schumer.
Boost (Sprint) is based in Kansas.
Boost/Sprint has been the most aggressive in moving into prepaid phones, which often have lower costs than contract services. This threatens the incumbents: AT&T and Verizon each have about double Sprint's subscriber base, and thus have the most to lose from a shift towards prepaid.
Increased surveillance rules remove prepaid's privacy benefits. And they impose record-keeping costs on prepaid services like Boost, making them less competitive with AT&T and Verizon's lucrative contract businesses.
I use it turn lights off and open cans.
I plan on selling prepaid phones on eBay at a large markup. :V
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Even with the ID of the teenager, you're assuming that the teenager will be able to accurately describe somebody who he/she only met once, possibly years earlier. What, you don't really think criminals would ask their *friends* to do such favors, do you?
This is unconstitutional because it destroys a major venue for anonymous speech. Centuries of history have proven that such venues are necessary to carry out legal acts of political dissent that otherwise result in all sorts of abuses.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Ya, force them to go back to stealing phones. That is much more safe for the public. This is a pain in the ass for everyone involved, a huge waste of time and money and will just push the drug dealers to either clone phones or steal them at a higher rate. It will not and cannot help.
Why does it always have to be a "fight"?...
Because Jefferson said that the Tree of Liberty had to be occasionally watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants, not the idle chatter of a message board.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
So, we have a proposed law that will do nothing to stop criminals from:
-- Using a fake ID to purchase the phone
-- Forcing, coercing, or paying some sap to buy the phone for them
-- Stealing phones, either from a store or an individual
On the latter (and expect such thefts to multiply several-fold if this passes), if they steal from an individual, they often think they've just misplaced or lost it, and it may be some time before they contact their provider and have the service suspended. Even a store theft can go undetected for several hours, add on a few more to determine which phones (numbers) have been stolen, a few more for the bureaucracy to get those numbers blocked, etc. In either case, a thief could easily have 24-48 hours of use before the phone is disabled or monitored. Considering many crooks go through prepaid phones like candy anyway, this won't slow them down too much. That only leaves the dumber crooks, and if they're stupid enough to buy a phone with their real ID, they're probably stupid enough to get caught pretty quickly even without this law.
On the other hand, this law would enable law-abiding users to be more easily tracked and identified by criminals, private eyes, general snoops, bill collectors, stalkers, blackmailers, and so on. Not to mention the guvmint, should you happen to hold ideas or engage in activities that, while not necessarily unlawful, are considered a "threat" by whomever is in power.
So, all in all, we have a law that would (a) do nothing to reduce crime and, indeed, likely increase it (the aforementioned assumed rise in phone thefts), while (b) inconveniencing, harrassing, and possibly endangering law-abiding citizens.
In other words....typical.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
"The purpose of the weapon is to injure"
The primary use of handguns is to punch small holes in pieces of paper and the primary use of rifles is to hunt non human prey, also, for both, to plink beer cans.
choosing to define the primary function of an object on the basis of some usage other than the how it is primarily used because that purpose suits ones political agenda is less than entirely honest
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
If there was no limit on the number of *chickens* he could produce, why does that matter??
The real point of that case is that it says, "We forbid you to produce this, and require you to purchase the exact same thing from someone else (so the someone else can make as much money as we think they should make)."
But if the object is to encourage economic recovery -- it backfires, because if this guy foregoes the wheat entirely, now can't produce as many chickens, and he becomes LESS properous. If he does buy the wheat, he incurs a greater cost per chicken, so again he becomes LESS properous. In either case, he loses prosperity by exactly the same amount as the cost of that wheat which he was required to buy rather than produce for himself. Net economic gain = at best zero.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Can you set up a PO Box anonymously? Or have it delivered to a business with which you have an arrangement?
Maybe. PO Box, not really. They now require a "permanent address", and I was asked for ID last time I got one.
At one time, you could get a mailbox with any kind of address you wanted with one of the private mailbox places (like Mailboxes, Etc., for instance). In the name of fighting mail fraud, as of June 24, 2000 the USPS delivers only to CMRA (Commercial Mail Receiver Agents) customers who have filled out a new Form 1583 and produced two forms of identification, including a photo ID. Copies of each ID will be kept by the CMRA and the USPS. Customers using their boxes for business will have to provide home addresses and phone numbers, and the information will be made available to anyone for the asking.
You'll be hard-pressed finding a business that will let you use them for a mail drop without following the rules above. Plus the USPS won't deliver anything there if it doesn't look like it's addressed to the business itself. And if the business thinks you may be getting contraband delivered, they won't touch it, because they can actually be held liable for mail fraud - a federal crime.
The point is you CANNOT communicate anonymously - that's the ultimate goal. This is why I'm now skeptical about the push for "Network Neutrality". Is it just a bait-and-switch? It's sold as a constraint on carriers, but seems likely to end up being an excuse to track everyone's activity. After all, how do they make sure they're properly regulating the Internet "utilities" and "protecting the children" online unless they can do deep packet inspection on every transmission line, and know who is posting to message boards?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Nullification is unconstitutional.
Like hell it is. Nullification is the entire purpose of our right to trial by jury, among other things. When the government exceeds its constitutional authority, it's our right and duty to nullify that action.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I don't think the American Revolution was fueled by starvation or poverty. What we lack is not hunger but moral conviction. I include myself in that accusation.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.