Pre-paid cellphones are a favorite of drug dealers, crooks, and even terrorists, and New York Sen. Charles Schumer said it’s time to make it harder for such suspects to hide behind a cheap piece of modern technology.
Citing the Times Square attempted bombing, in which the suspect allegedly used a pre-paid phone in the weeks before the incident, Schumer is pushing legislation that would require people to show identification when they buy a pre-paid cell phone. Sellers would also be required to keep records of who bought specific phones.
The Democratic lawmaker and Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn are sponsoring the bill.
Schumer called such a law long overdue and argued it was only a lucky break that allowed federal agents to trace the pre-paid phone in the Times Square case back to suspect Faisal Shahzad.
Even white-collar criminals have made use of pre-paid cellphones. In 2009, authorities say pre-paid cell phones were used by hedge fund managers and Wall Street executives implicated in the large insider trading case tied to the Galleon Group. Federal prosecutors say traders in that case communicated with other executives through prepaid phones in order to try to evade potential wiretaps.
(Source: WSJ)
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8 Responses
They are also the favorite of people with limited means who need a phone for emergencies (as in “help, my car died”) rather than for long chats. This bill will raise the costs for people with the least means.
As it is, one can determine where a phone was sold, how money was added to the account. Extra regulations won’t help the police, and will hurt the poor. It will help the phone companies, who prefer that people buy expensive long term contracts.
no!, i use those all the time. i get like 3 new phone numbers a month. its $30 for 300 minutes and the phone from net10, they let you choose whatever area code you want. then they let you return them when the minutes are gone for your $30 back!
So these same liberals who are so dead set against Arizona being allowed to investigate the legal status of someone they already caught, perpetrating some other crime, are now demanding everyone who buys a pre paid cell phone has to “show them your papers”.
I wouldn’t necessarily mind such a law, but I am consistent bacuse I also supported the Patriot Act and
the Arizona immigration law.
Liberalism = hypocrisy
#3
you still don’t get it. The Arizona law is naked racism. The proposed cell phone law would apply to everyone, regardless of ethnicity.
Liberals are not the hypocrites, YOU ARE by supporting racism and claiming to be a good American.
There’s nothing even slightly hypocritical about this.
“Liberals” oppose the Arizona law because they’re afraid it will by enforced in a discriminatory way, among other reasons which have even less to do with this proposal. This law cannot be used in such a way. If the Arizona law mandated that everyone stopped by the police prove that they were in this country leagally, it would be similar and you’d have a point. However, there is also exactly no chance of such a law ever being passed anywhere.
No Moose613, YOU ARE THE HYPOCRITE! It is obvious you have not read the bill, all 17 pages of it, then you would realize that Arizona is just trying to protect herself though I wonder if you have the adequate amount of gray matter to comprehend that.
#6
Assumiing that you are literate and can read, try a good civics book. The chaptgers that specify whose responsibility it si to enforce immigration laws. If those responsible do NOT do it, then there are clearly defined remedies available.
BTW I have read the Arizona bill.
Moose, your statement doesn’t make any sense. The bill doesn’t specify that it applies to HISPANIC ILLEGAL ALIENS, it applies to ILLEGAL ALIENS– AND therefore it “APPL[ies] TO EVERYONE [who is illegal] REGARDLESS OF ETHNICITY.”
You want to stop convicting all people of all crimes? No, oh, wait a second! You want to ONLY not convict HISPANIC ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS of THEIR CRIME!
So not only is the bill NOT racist, but YOU’RE actually guilty of reversed racism! Pathetic.