Slashdot Mirror
Bill Introduced To Require ID When Purchasing "Burner Phones" (house.gov)
insitus quotes a report from Speier.House.Gov: Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) introduced the Closing the Pre-Paid Mobile Device Security Gap Act of 2016, which would require people to present identification when purchasing "burner phones" and other pre-paid mobile devices, as well as requiring merchants to keep records of those purchases. "Burner phones" are pre-paid phones that terrorists, human traffickers, and narcotics dealers often use to avoid scrutiny by law enforcement because they can be purchased without identification and record-keeping requirements. This bill would close that legal gap.
"This bill would close one of the most significant gaps in our ability to track and prevent acts of terror, drug trafficking, and modern-day slavery," said Speier. "The 'burner phone' loophole is an egregious gap in our legal framework that allows actors like the 9/11 hijackers and the Times Square bomber to evade law enforcement while they plot to take innocent lives. The Paris attackers also used 'burner phones.' As we've seen so vividly over the past few days, we cannot afford to take those kinds of risks. It's time to close this 'burner phone' loophole for good."
When it passes, we'll have major crack downs on straw purchases for 30 minute tactical assault ghost phones with things that go up. Not exactly surprised this is coming out of San Francisco.
Not everybody. Some of us mash the bones up, mix them with clay and make sculptures with it. Or plates.
Ummm ... that's what, yeah, a guy said, who was on the creative writing course I took.
BRB, door.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We should just make terrorism illegal. That will fix everything!
That's the reason for the D or R after the name: You literally cannot tell them apart without a score card any more (and haven't been able to for decades).
They all ultimately want the same thing: to go through your pockets for loose change they missed last time.
When it passes, we'll have major crack downs on straw purchases for 30 minute tactical assault ghost phones with things that go up. Not exactly surprised this is coming out of San Francisco.
Nah, the tactical assault phones are fine, well as long as they don't have the large capacity battery or the automatic reload system.
Seriously, this is the same as the encryption battle and likely a bad idea for the same reasons. I personally just do not trust any government will always use such ultimate power for good, and monitoring all communications is pretty dang scary on the ultimate power scale.
And require ID to get it!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII