Following the lead of privacy trailblazer Mexico, we’re going to start recording the ID of everyone who buys a prepaid cell phone. I’m sure you can guess the reason why:
“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,” Schumer said.
The firecracker non-bomber used a prepaid cell phone to call a Craiglist seller to buy his Nissan Pathfinder. Ergo, prepaid cell phones are bad. If he had used a pay phone, we’d be installing security cameras in every booth. If he had used two tin cans with a string, we’d be regulating the sales of baked beans and butcher’s twine.
I realize this is merely a proposal, but is there any doubt that it will pass in an election year when the secret passphrase (“terrorism”) is used? We’re just lucky that Schumer didn’t decide to ban Craigslist, Nissan Pathfinders or gas barbeque grills.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
What’s the alternative? Wouldn’t this just give law enforcement a missing step to get them a warrant?
Isn’t it a bigger deal that we have a system that basically wiretaps everybody? Why should burner phones be exempt when my cell phone isn’t?
Zifnab
I don’t suppose they can staple the bill onto something useful, like the Jobs bill or a decriminalization of marijuana law or something?
mellowjohn
what a great idea. collect data on everyone buying a pre-paid cell phone, but destroy the background checks of gun purchasers within… what, 24 hrs? 48 hrs?
Urza
So, silly point, but unless the store is actually cross referencing that liscence against a live database (which isn’t gonna happen on the first pass), it’ll be just as easy for a criminal with a fake liscence to get the phone. But thankfully it will be slightly more of a pain in the ass for the legitimate users who just want a throwaway phone for talking to their mistresses.
jibeaux
I was probably going to get one of these for my son “just in case” for walking back and forth from school and whatnot. I’m sure that somehow, this will result in getting him on the no-fly list right before our vacation this summer.
DanF
The ones who will stop this bill will be Republican congressmen who use pre-paid phones to arrange their booty calls.
An American in Exile
Switzerland does this already. I remember chuckling to myself over the fact that getting a mobile phone here required more documentation than I would have needed to buy a handgun in the US.
Urza
And Mellowjohn has a great point, we need background checks on people using a throwaway phone, but not people buying guns? Can someone please explain how I landed in bizzaro world, cause I try to avoid all those shimmering portals with psychedelic colors.
Jinchi
Sure. But are we going to ignore every other fool law that doesn’t reach that level of offensiveness?
The U.S. is already torturing people. Don’t you still care that Congressmen and Senators also want to get rid of Miranda, habeas corpus and the 4th amendment?
WereBear
@Urza: No one has the right to a cell phone, bud! It’s not in the Constitution.
Brien Jackson
@mellowjohn:
How is that even remotely the same? I mean, that’s actually a really bad example, since the records of gun transactions and licenses stays on file forever, in no small part so that law enforcement can track any gun used in a crime.
Brien Jackson
I don’t know, this doesn’t sound that bad to me. It’s basically what we do with guns, so why not?
Punchy
Otherwise known as “Sprint service plan”.
Zach
Makes more sense than IDing for Sudafed and WD-40. Which is still no sense at all.
Also, don’t F with Sprint, Punchy. The service might blow, but in return you can call repeatedly, say you’re going to quit, and have them lower your rate to around zero to keep you on and lavish you with free (albeit woefully out of date) phones.
Face
But what happens when bad guys discover….ssssshhhh!…. /whisper/…fake ID’s?
Matt
Haven’t you ever seen The Wire? Lester Freamon wouldn’t have had to go through so much shit to do his job.
scav
wait, maybe we can all just communicate by morse code using hails of bullets.
JohnMcC
Pretty delicious to anyone who remembers the hullaballoo over the ‘taggents’ that Liberals wanted to require in ammonia based fertilizer (like Timothy McVeigh used)’ (http://www.slate.com/id/2111955). But of course conservatives kept THAT restriction on our freedom from happening. But a pre-paid mobile phone–obviously a terrorist tool. Way to go wingnuts!!
Mike Kay
hope al qaeda doesn’t hire some Navajo code talkers.
Persia
I had an abusive in-law who liked to harass members of the family with prepaid cell phones. I think I’m not particularly objective on this one.
TomG
Schumer’s my senator and this is yet another reason I can’t stand him – along with his support of national ID cards.
Legalize
This would effectively eliminate about 2/3 of the Wire series. And almost all of that M.I.A. song.
Tonybrown74
Beyond the privacy concerns, this just seems so inefficient. Massive Databases with no checks, possible stolen IDs and fake names used to buy phones, I see nothing but drama and no results.
Comrade Darkness
Possible unintended consequence of this rule is lower income people getting their ID straight so they can actually vote. People won’t get their paperwork right just to vote, but they sure as hell will to get a cell phone.
burnspbesq
Shopping list for next business trip to Canada: Cuban cigars and prepaid cell phones.
The dumbassery of our gubmint increases daily.
Cat Lady
If burners are illegal, then only illegals will have burners.
WereBear
@Comrade Darkness: Mmm, love that thought.
But this is just another example of how we just hate to tackle the actual source of the problem. We will treat symptoms until the cows come home, make dinner, and wash up, but actually eradicating the disease would mean costing some rich asshole money.
Nutella
Payphones, even the ones that were making money, were removed from poor neighborhoods a few years ago because drug dealers could use them to make deals. No word yet on removing air and water from those neighborhoods to keep the drug dealers from using those, too.
The War on Drugs and the War on Terror have a lot in common. No one want to address the real problems that cause them but everyone’s happy to make poor people suffer while pretending to be fighting a War.
Ash
I’m not very objective on this matter. One of my best friends was harrassed for almost two years by an anonymous stalker who used pre-paid cellphones. It makes a whole lot more sense to me than tracking who’s buying cough medicine.
Mr Furious
If Nokia can figure out a way for their tossable phones to fire bullets, they could get around this easily.
Then the phones’d be sacred.
sparky
a. were this to be enacted, guess what will come back: pay phones! maybe even phonebooths!
we should really stop the incremental steps and get to it:
first, everyone needs to be locked up in their dwelling at all times for their own safety; after all, we can’t take a chance–what if we let a criminal out there?
second, we can solve the unemployment problem by hiring the unemployed as informants. worked pretty well in East Germany.
ET
OH yeah the practicalities and enforcement of this is going to be easy as pie.
Not!
RareSanity
Does anyone know if something like this gets initiated by law enforcement officials?
If so, our law enforcement agencies must be the most lazy on the planet. There is a reason why the FBI has a job titled “field agent”, that means to get your ass in the field and do the ‘I’ in FBI, investigations.
The fact that law enforcement agencies always want more and more money so that, at some point, investigations would consist of a customized, government database, Google search is ridiculous.
Your “job” is not supposed to be easy. You carry the power to shoot, taze and imprison people. You should be required to get off of your ass and assemble evidence in order to exercise (heh) those powers.
How about you dickheads go back to developing assets inside “suspicious” groups, both domestic and abroad? Follow leads from those assets, begin to piece together a picture of illegal activity, then, get arrest warrants for those involved?
You know…investigations. Not fishing net, database searches.
If things like this do not originate from law enforcement agencies, but politicians, I think what I said still stands. But, I would add a big, “up their nose wit a rubba hose”, to the politicians pushing it.
If I need a burner to call my non-existent mistress, dammit, this is America, I should be able to.
catclub
Straw buyers are only ok for guns.
The bad guys wouldn’t possibly think of doing it for prepaid cellphones. “The Wire” cannot be used as evidence to the contrary.
Ryan
So then they’ll just migrate to IP conversations; what’s next, banning skype?
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
“Payphones, even the ones that were making money, were removed from poor neighborhoods a few years ago because drug dealers could use them to make deals.”
I know i’m just getting my Info from “The Wire”, but I thought the Drug Dealers stopped using the Payphones because they were so easily wiretapped. Burners have no tracability whatsoever.
“If burners are illegal, then only illegals will have burners. ”
Yes, completely, because this law outlaws burners.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Urza:
Because guns don’t kill people – cell phones kill people. Also, Charlton Heston didn’t have a cell phone in The Ten Commandments, he used a burning bush. You’ll notice that they aren’t talking about registering flaming shrubbery.
LosGatosCA
All the negativity! Look at the bright side, the bad guys will never use a fake id. Or steal one from someone else. It’s friggin’ foolproof.
ericblair
@Comrade Darkness:
Hey, congratulations, I think you’ve singlehandedly ensured a Republican filibuster.
Svensker
@Urza:
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Terrorists using guns don’t kill people because they are busy supporting Freedom! But terrorists who use cheap phones are skeeeeeery and trying to impose Sharia law! What’s so hard to understand about that, hippie?
Sheila
By this reasoning, we should ban airplanes, mailboxes and the postal service too. London should ban the tube.
gypsy howell
Maybe the gun manufacturers can start incorporating phones into their weapons. (Just be careful you don’t shoot yourself in the head when you answer a call.) Then the NRA would spend millions defending our right to bear burners.
stacie
I’m not sure I have a problem with this. It seems like prepaid cell phones are implicated in all sorts of prosecutable offenses, and it doesn’t seem like an undue burden to show ID. All of my cellular data on my subscription plan can presumably be tracked straight back to me, making anonymous prepaid phones something of a loophole.
Am I wrong?
burnspbesq
@stacie:
You’re not wrong, but you’re missing the bigger point. The proposed law won’t achieve its intended purpose, and will unnecessarily invade the privacy of huge numbers of people whose only crime is being too poor to afford a cell phone that is on a monthly plan.
Svensker
@stacie:
Do we want to live in a free country or not? Apparently, most people don’t anymore — I guess it’s too risky.
If you ever want to see how far we’ve come from actually living as free people, watch a cheesy old 50s Ernie Gann movie called “The High and the Mighty” which takes place on an airplane flight from Hawaii to the U.S. and includes a refugee from Red China. It will astonish you.
burnspbesq
More @ Stacie:
The proponents of this law once again fail to realize that real life is not like “24.” in real life, there is nobody monitoring all the suspected bad guy’s prepaid phones in real time so the cops can swoop in and arrest them as soon as the phone is turned on. And even if there were, the smart bad guy has a backpack full of prepaid phones smuggled in from Canada and only uses them once each, so even if a snitch has told the cops what number to monitor, they will end up swooping in on the trash can at Starbucks.
IndieTarheel
@burnspbesq:
I believe they refer to that as a feature, not a bug. Or icing on the cake. Or maybe a scoop of ice cream on the pie, or something. Either way, this consequence was neither benign nor unintended.
Corner Stone
@Ryan:
They can already monitor skype traffic.
Corner Stone
@scav: “bang! bang! bang!” BANG…BANG…BANG! “bang! bang! bang!”
Corner Stone
@stacie:
Long as it keeps us safe, amirite?
Corner Stone
@IndieTarheel:
Top Hat?
I’ve been wondering how I can use all the new oil spill terminology in everyday usage. I’ve already figured out how to use it in dirty talk usage.
trollhattan
This is good news for
John McCainpay phone owners.Tonal Crow
Each day the slope of lost liberty becomes steeper and more slippery. Is there any liberty that we won’t cede to a politician who tells us that doing so’ll help catch “terrorists, drug kingpins, and gang members”? I’m calling Schumer’s office right now to give him the what for.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
I’m totally surprised at the number of people here who think that making anonymous calls from a cell-phone is the lynchpin of free speech.
You have this giant loophole that criminals are exploiting. All this is doing is slightly decreasing the size of that loophole. yes, criminals can go up to Canada and buy 100 burner phones, but you bet that will raise suspicion and might give invesigators a lead. Yes, criminals can have fake id’s to buy the burners, but, if in investigating a crime, you find a guy who is using a fake ID to buy phones, you can flag a fake ID as well (or any phones that ID buys). Yes, the criminal can then get New Fake ID’s every week, but then you increase the number of Fake ID’s needed, and you can then look for the criminal by that avenue of increased fake id requests.
I guess I’m just still confused on why this bill set blogs aflame. Is it because we’ve lost so many other fights about wiretapping that we’re grasping at straws for a last bastion of “free speech”?
Tonal Crow
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac: What liberty will you refuse to cede when a politician demands it to “help catch criminals?”
Corner Stone
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
And if we have? Does that make giving this shit an Ole! to be the right decision?
Calouste
You don’t even need a fake ID to get an untraceable pre-paid cell phone. The only thing you need is find a bum on the street with an ID you can bribe with a bottle of JD to go to a store to buy a prepaid cell phone for you.
David Atkins
I have no problem with this, really. Not because of the terrorism angle, but because every criminal knows that to skirt the law and any potential *legitimate* wiretaps, just use a pre-paid phone. Heck, it’s a Hollywood trope.
Showing ID to get a pre-paid sounds reasonable. The only real issue I can see is that a lot of undocumented immigrants use pre-paid phones as their cell service. They’d be cut out of the equation and left without a cell phone. Could be a probem.
Corner Stone
@David Atkins:
Fuck you Bill Clinton/ George Bush / Barack Obama!
Fuck you right up your stupid asses!
benjoya
you can’t spell “chuck schumer” without “schmuck”
Corner Stone
@benjoya: Hmmm. I have learned something here today.
JL
I want to dislike this bill, but I actually think it’s a good idea. It is a huge loophole that criminals of all kinds exploit. It’s a major inconvenience to show my ID if I were to purchase a pre-paid phone, but I do believe this will help law enforcement.
I find it much more annoying to have to show ID every time I get a cold and want my favorite cold medicine that actually stops my symptoms. Despite being annoying, there has been no violation of any of my rights – even my right to relieve stuffed nasal passages.
Similarly, putting some ID and background requirements on gun purchases violates no rights either.
Tonal Crow
@JL: Of course anything the government does to catch criminals doesn’t violate anyone’s rights, because no one has a right to be a criminal. And if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Also. Too.
Is there anything the government can do to “combat crime” to which you would object?
JL
@Tonal Crow:
To me, there is a HUGE difference between listening to conversations and simply having a record of pre-paid cell phone purchases. My supermarket has a comprehensive database of all my purchases because I use one of those loyalty cards. Yes, I opted into the card, but no one is required to purchase a pre-paid phone, either.
So, to answer your question, listening to phone calls without a warrant is something to which I object. Pulling the call log of my pre-paid (or contracted) cell phone without a warrant is something I object to. Showing my ID to purchase wine is not something I object to. There being a record that I purchased a pre-paid cell phone is not something I object to.
Besides, I had to show MUCH more than my ID to get my contracted cell phone (which is what criminals avoid by using “burners.”)
licensed to kill time
__
The register your cell phone thing in Mexico pretty much died a quiet death after so many people either registered under fake names (over 11,000 Felipe Calderones! Who knew?) or never bothered to register or the backlog of attempted registrants grew so large they basically couldn’t keep up.
A court ruling was obtained that delayed implementation and that was about it for the law. The vast majority of people in Mexico have pre-paid phones that you buy cards for to load more pesos on, and the vast majority are not using them for nefarious purposes. It was just a stupid idea, criminals could get around it in a heartbeat and ordinary people had to jump through hoops.
Like most drug war/war on terrah! regulations, really.
scav
@Corner Stone: BANG! bang BANG! bangt bang BANG! BANG! bangt, BANG! bang BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! bang bang BANG!, bang bang bang bangt bangt bang BANG! bang BANG! bangt, BANG! BANG! bangt, BANG! bangt BANG! BANG! BANG! bang BANG! BANG! bang bang BANG! BANG! bang bangt, , bang bang BANG! bangt bang bangt BANG! bangt BANG! bang BANG! BANG! BANG! bang bang BANG! BANG!, bang bangt bang BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! bangt BANG! BANG!, BANG! BANG! BANG! bang bang BANG! BANG!, BANG! BANG! BANG! bang bang BANG! bangt, bang BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! bang BANG! bang BANG! bang BANG!
MattR
@scav: I have no idea what that says, but I had to offer my congratulations for defeating Word Press.
Corner Stone
@scav: That may be the most single hatefullest thing anyone has ever said to me.
I can’t believe you brought that into this.
scav
@Corner Stone: hey, but I left your mother out of it. :)
Tonal Crow
@JL: I am glad that you object to warrantless wiretaps and searches of call logs, but grieve that you don’t object to this registration requirement as the loss of yet another portion of our privacy. Like a deli salami, our governments are paring it down slice by slice. Will it be long before government requires everyone to submit a DNA sample? And searches it routinely? Every year we get closer: first it was samples from convicted rapists, then all convicted felons, then all convicts. And now the federal government (and some states) require samples from all arrestees, and some courts have even allowed cops (not nurses, cops) to forcibly take a blood sample from an arrestee. http://www.aele.org/law/Digests/jail30.html
When does it end? And what will we do to end it?
BTW, I don’t agree that “no one is required to purchase a pre-paid phone”. If you have little credit history and little money, or are living on the street, you probably can’t get a landline and probably can’t qualify for a non-prepaid cellphone either. Your only choices are to be unreachable by phone (which is a big problem when you’re searching for a job), to borrow a phone (good luck), or to buy a burner. With Schumer’s law, doing so will put you on the “look here first for criminals” list. BTW, Schumer’s law also creates the opportunity for criminals to frame innocents by using their identities to purchase their burners. Nice.
Corner Stone
@scav: Hey! Hey now!
Let’s just leave moms outta this. Let’s just get off of moms.
Since I just got off yours!
/old school dozens. I think by Damon Wayans
scav
@Corner Stone: well, I just hope you have your shots. this message going out clear text as a matter of public health.
@Tonal Crow: And, remember the freak-outs some get when they see people in food pantries with cell phones. It’s as though they think communication is a privilege instead of a necessity.
Tonal Crow
@scav:
Oh noes! Young bucks is usin’ are tax dollars ta buy T-mobile fones!
Corner Stone
@Tonal Crow: God how I hate them for being able to keep in touch with their -loved ones- drug pushers.
JL
@Tonal Crow:
I know what you are saying and I am indeed wary. However, i don’t really like slippery slope arguments. Registering a purchase of Sudafed does not require that we have to therefore do drug testing to purchase it. Legalizing gay marriage does not require that we must therefore allow inter-species marriage; another slippery slope argument I hate (I know you are not making this argument, it’s just a slippery slope example).
We can choose to do one thing and then choose NOT to do things that appear to “logically follow.”
So no, I don’t believe that registering purchases of pre-paid cell phones will lead to registering my DNA. Nor do I believe that preventing the registering of cell phone purchases will stop someone from trying to register our DNA.
Good point.
I’m not sure that’s what the law creates, nor am I sure that’s an effective way to use the list. As you point out, lots of people buy pre-paid cells for lots of reasons. I think it’s more about the specific case. The Times Square non-bomber called the guy about the car on Craigslist using a burner. They couldn’t trace the burner. With this list, they could have. With this list, he wouldn’t have had an untraceable option.
With this law, when the cops find a particular phone number involved in a crime, that number will always be traceable.
Yeah, criminals steal identities to do all sorts of criminal things. Sucks. I wish there were more safeguards to protecting our identities. Criminals also steal identities to get cable, passports, credit cards, guns – and land lines and iphones.
So with this law all phone purchases will be registered, not just some. All my phone purchases are registered somewhere. I had no privacy when I put in my land line or bought my Blackberry (I had to provide all sorts of info to buy my Blackberry and my provider contract). If I’m ever in a situation where I need to buy a pre-paid phone, then I’ll have to register that purchase too.
Tonal Crow
@JL: Alas, the slippery slope has repeatedly proven damned slippery when it comes to the loss of liberty. And that’s no coincidence. We become habituated to giving away liberty in small slices under the fear of terrorism and crime and under the threat of being denounced as terrorist sympathizers and/or soft on crime and/or criminals ourselves. Once a few slices are gone, the argument becomes, “We already take off our shoes at the airport, and whole-body scans will help us catch terrorists, and there will be strong privacy protections, so why not?” or “We already take DNA samples from sex offenders and murderers, and they help us catch criminals, so why not take DNA from pot smokers and catch even more criminals?”
Thus, each loss of liberty becomes an argument for succeeding losses, rather than a reason to oppose them.
On the Times Square non-bomber, danger is inherent in freedom and, indeed, in the human condition. We cannot eliminate danger even by eliminating liberty; for example, prisons are more dangerous than almost any other place. This isn’t an argument for anarchy, but for reasoned moderation and acceptance of life’s hazards. We have become obsessed with safety. We will not live forever. No one has yet.
Brien Jackson
@Tonal Crow:
So I take it you object to registering guns, cars and so on too right?
Tonal Crow
@Brien Jackson: No, I do not object to registering cars. Guns are a closer question, as I’m quite convinced that the 2nd Amendment was intended as a last backstop against governmental tyranny. But phones? No friggin’ way.
So I take it that there’s no liberty you wouldn’t give up if a politician told you it would help to “fight terrorists and criminals”? Amirite?
Brien Jackson
@Tonal Crow:
I don’t really see where there’s a “liberty” issue involved here. I mean, basically no one objects to law enforcement being able to get warrants to search phone records in the course of an investigation. I suppose it’s possible you do, but that would clearly put you out of the mainstream. As long as the same rules and procedures that exist for other phones apply to burners, I don’t see where there’s really much of a case to be made that this is uniquely horrible.
Tonal Crow
@Brien Jackson: Of course there’s a ‘”liberty” issue involved’. The Bill of Rights (and similar state constitutional provisions) guarantee a minimum of liberty, not a maximum. Every statute or regulation potentially shrinks liberty. Schumer’s bill would shrink the liberty of anonymity. It is not “uniquely horrible”, but it would take yet another slice of freedom of action from the people and give it to the government. And it will be used to bolster arguments for more slices to be taken later.
BTW, does anyone ever analyze what the liberty we so casually give away buys us in terms of safety? You know, cost-benefit analysis and all that?