Proposed Bill Would Require IDs for Prepaid Cell Phones

reply to post by Mikey Sly


With a pre-paid phone you are still using the services of whatever provider you get your phone from. Doesn't matter if it's T-Mobile, AT&T or TracPhone. You are using some providers service. The only difference is the contract. That's it.

With the contract you agree to pay a certain amount, and they agree to provide service. Without a contract you pay up front and, depending on provider, they take away minutes if you don't use it every day or void any minutes you haven't used within a certain time period. Contract or no, you're still using a cell phone that can only be used on one providers network (unless you unlock it) and you're still using that providers service.

The examples I was responding to are ridiculous in comparison. Nowhere have I ever seen anyone have to show ID for a pair of pants, a book, shoes, underwear, dental floss or dental work unless they were paying with a credit card or check. A car and alcohol you have to show ID for already whether it's to check your age or to qualify for the loan. (Unless you have enough cash to buy a car outright, but even then they still ask for it if you're buying it at a dealership.) As I said though, don't let common sense stand in the way.

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


And again that is different

And this "I don't see why people get so bent out of shape" apathy for the constitution is why we have so little freedom left. And the to hear something like well I don't see how this will take away what little freedoms we have left. It is because of bill like this that all we have left is little freedom.

reply to post by Mikey Sly


Where in the Constitution does it say one can get a pre-paid cell phone without presenting an ID?

Just because you do not like something, it is not necessarily unconstitutional. The Constitution does not prevent Congress from passing laws that people disagree with.

Easy fix. Skype. It's been reported that it's nearly impossible to crack the switching algorithms which Skype uses. You can even get a 3g, wifi, portable phone. I already switched from win7 to mint9 the other day. About to drop the cell and pick up a cheap skype package.

reply to post by Jenna


" Without a contract you pay up front and, depending on provider, they take away minutes if you don't use it every day or void any minutes you haven't used within a certain time period. Contract or no, you're still using a cell phone that can only be used on one providers network (unless you unlock it) and you're still using that providers service. "


It would appear to me that you know very little about pre-paid phones .

I have used them for years , and have NEVER experienced anything remotely resembling the claims in your post .

Not once , have I ever had minutes taken away for not using them in an allotted time frame . If you stop for a minute and think about that , how would they justify taking something from you that you have paid for in advance (pre-paid) ?

And , you are NOT limited to operating off of one providers network . I can use my pre-paid phone anywhere , it operates off of the towers of several networks .

And I never pay roaming charges .

There is a host of reasons I prefer pre-paid , and being a criminal is not one of them .

Your above post is without merit .

" Nowhere have I ever seen anyone have to show ID for a ..." PRE-PAID CELLPHONE .

[edit on 30-5-2010 by okbmd]

Originally posted by The Alamo Ripper
NOPE I THINK ITS A GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!

think of all the criminals who use these prepaid phones for their crimes now we will be able to keep tabs on those people no more loop hole

yeah right.....

why not allowing them to come to your house when they want and search it cause you know...all those criminal that use house to comit crime...and will you are at it lets make a bill to let them analed search you at the bank cause you might have a gun in there ....this is ridiculous

the governement job is to maintain the structure of the country.not control its population.

i prefer to stay out of the system...not because im a criminal...because its not of there busyness...i got no bank account no home phone only a prepaid on the name of jet lee

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


Amendment 10 of the Bill of Rights

Nowhere in the constitution does congress have the right of compulsory distribution of identification nor does it have the right to demand that ID be presented upon the purchase of a private good or service. Therefor without congress having said rights those rights are imbued to the states and the citizens.

I do not have a drivers license so do you feel I should not have my prepaid phone?

reply to post by Mikey Sly


The tenth amendment reserves rights that the Constitution does not allocate to Congress for the people. Unfortunately for your argument, the commerce clause gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce. Prepaid wireless communications are interstate commerce, so Congress can regulate it.

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


No, the original intent of the commerce clause was to ensure that the selling and prices of and to all states was equitable. That way one state didn't refuse to sell to one specific state or charge a higher price to a state than it did to the other states.

What it has become today is a bastardization of the original intent of the constitution. It was meant to prevent conflict among the states more than anything.

Now you can quote interstate commerce like the braindead politicians do but that does not make it correct

EDIT: Not to imply you are braindead, I only meant the politicians

[edit on 30-5-2010 by Mikey Sly]

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


In addition the cell phone I have only operates in my area. It will however call other states. So with that logic should congress regulate paper and pens? Since those are used to send letters across states.

reply to post by okbmd


Then you've been lucky enough to get your phone service from a provider that doesn't take away minutes after a set time period or for non-use. Every pre-paid phone I've had or that family members have had, does. You not experiencing it does not in any way invalidate my post.

reply to post by Jenna


The difference is several fold.

1. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for the government to have this information. None. What, they will use this information to get information on a phone call to someone in some other country, or on some international pay as you go phone? What good does that do them?

2. One of the reasons folks use those cards is for privacy and personal security. The person who has a violent spouse looking for them or someone else who has access to credit cards and phone bills. A prepaid card is a way to ensure some level of privacy.

At the end of the day, it is nobody's business who you are talking to, period. All of the folks who say "well thats great because they will only get the bad guys or "I have nothing to hide" are missing the point.

They have no business knowing this information. They have no business reading your e-mails, looking at your physical mail, looking at the websites you view, checking out your social network information, no business looking at your phone records, no business tracking your financial transactions. Unless you break the law, they have no business prying into your personal information.

There is a small thing in the US. Its called presumption of innocence. That presumption is shot to hell at the moment. To the extent that they can violate your privacy under the umbrella of national/state security, you are property of the state, plain and simple. Most of the above information can easily be manipulated.

"I never made that call" go ahead and prove it. Clearly they have records that you did. Are those the real records? How do you prove it?

"I never authored that e-mail" well here it is, from your e-mail address. Now you go ahead and prove it is not yours. Go ahead and argue against the government and the ISP who will talk about the $millions they spend on network and database security. Mountains of information that will create a preponderance of evidence that you did in fact send it.

Same with web activity, same with any of it.

When your behaivor is tracked it is the same thing as a presumption of guilt. Exactly the same thing.

Couple that with the social engineering in terms of sin taxes, affirmative action, regulations and you have an increasing degree of freedom.

Folks who don't realise that this is a death by 1000 cuts are crazy. When they begin to research things that you object to, tough. You sat on your high horse while all the precedent was set.

Do I want Mohammed the terrorist caught? You bet. Am I willing to sacrifice all levels of my personal privacy and freedoms to catch him? No I'm not. We spend enough coin on security and law enforcement in this country to be competent enough to track these dudes down and kill them without abridging the rights and freedoms of innocent people

reply to post by Mikey Sly


The Commerce clause reads, "Congress shall have Power...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and
with the Indian Tribes." Nowhere in the text of the Constitution does the Commerce Clause limit itself as you described.

You might be correct in that the Supreme Court did an about face during the New Deal era and opened the Commerce Clause wide open, but old cases like Gibbons v. Ogden make it clear that the term "Commerce" as it is used in the Constitution refers broadly to any sort of "intercourse" between the states and not as narrowly as you described it.

I do not know where you get your ideas for your narrow interpretation of the Commerce clause, please tell me? Is that from a Federalist Paper?

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


en.wikipedia.org...

The significance of the Commerce Clause is described in the Supreme Court's opinion in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005):
“ The Commerce Clause emerged as the Framers' response to the central problem giving rise to the Constitution itself: the absence of any federal commerce power under the Articles of Confederation. For the first century of our history, the primary use of the Clause was to preclude the kind of discriminatory state legislation that had once been permissible. Then, in response to rapid industrial development and an increasingly interdependent national economy, Congress “ushered in a new era of federal regulation under the commerce power,” beginning with the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890. "

But nonetheless, wherein is the authority to demand ID for the purchase of goods and services purchased from a privately owned company for the use of a government agency?

reply to post by dolphinfan


Is that the terrorist Muhammed Ali? LoL

You know, the one Texas is on the lookout for.

reply to post by Mikey Sly


You might want to read a Supreme Court opinion in its entirety before you cite it. The Gonzales v. Raich decision reads:

Cases decided during that "new era," which now spans more than a century, have identified three general categories of regulation in which Congress is authorized to engage under its commerce power. First, Congress can regulate the channels of interstate commerce. Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146, 150 (1971). Second, Congress has authority to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and persons or things in interstate 17*17 commerce. Ibid. Third, Congress has the power to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Ibid.; NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 37 (1937). Only the third category is implicated in the case at hand.

Our case law firmly establishes Congress' power to regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic "class of activities" that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. See, e. g., Perez, 402 U. S., at 151; Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 128-129 (1942). As we stated in Wickard, "even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce." Id., at 125. We have never required Congress to legislate with scientific exactitude. When Congress decides that the "`total incidence'" of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it may regulate the entire class. See Perez, 402 U. S., at 154-155 (quoting Westfall v. United States, 274 U. S. 256, 259 (1927) ("`[W]hen it is necessary in order to prevent an evil to make the law embrace more than the precise thing to be prevented it may do so'")). In this vein, we have reiterated that when "`a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.'" E. g., Lopez, 514 U. S., at 558 (emphasis deleted) (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196, n. 27 (1968)).

Mobile phones can fit under two of the three categories of activties Congress can regulate. They are instrumentalities of interstate commerce as they can be used to transact out of one's state. They also have a substantial effect on interstate markets.

Why would anyone care about the legalities of cell phone useage

when on this same ATS page, they can read how mobile phones

are responsible for the dramatic decline in honey bees


Without honey bees the world has a few short years of starvation

before death


So which matters more: having the equivalent of a baby's dummy to clap to your head when you're insecure ?

Or dying of slow starvation and desperation ?


Well, maybe all that's academic anyway ?

Maybe the destruction of honey bees is already irreversible ?

Maybe your own ghastly death is staring you in the face ?

Fat lot of good a cell phone will do you then, huh ?

Originally posted by dolphinfan
1. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for the government to have this information. None. What, they will use this information to get information on a phone call to someone in some other country, or on some international pay as you go phone? What good does that do them?

By that logic they have no need to see my ID when I get a cell phone with a contract attached since the contract is the only difference between the two. When they start requiring an ID to buy underwear as the other poster suggested let me know and I'll have my outrage ready to go. For this? Not so much.

2. One of the reasons folks use those cards is for privacy and personal security. The person who has a violent spouse looking for them or someone else who has access to credit cards and phone bills. A prepaid card is a way to ensure some level of privacy.

A name change, moving, and some level of police involvement is more effective than a pre-paid phone. Not to mention that someone whose name isn't on your phone contract, bank account, credit cards, whatever, has no right to the information anyway so whether you have a prepaid phone or one with a contract makes no difference. If their name isn't on it, they have no legal right to the information. And if you're being stalked by a violent spouse your best bet is going to the police, not trying to hide by using a prepaid phone.

They have no business knowing this information. They have no business reading your e-mails, looking at your physical mail, looking at the websites you view, checking out your social network information, no business looking at your phone records, no business tracking your financial transactions. Unless you break the law, they have no business prying into your personal information.

Never said they did. Nor does this give them access to anything just by virtue of tying your identity to that prepaid phone you use. It's no different than your identity being tied to one with a contract except that there isn't a contract signed. That is the only difference between a prepaid phone and contract phone.

"I never made that call" go ahead and prove it. Clearly they have records that you did. Are those the real records? How do you prove it?

"I never authored that e-mail" well here it is, from your e-mail address. Now you go ahead and prove it is not yours. Go ahead and argue against the government and the ISP who will talk about the $millions they spend on network and database security. Mountains of information that will create a preponderance of evidence that you did in fact send it.

And not showing your ID to turn on a prepaid phone changes that how?

Do I want Mohammed the terrorist caught? You bet. Am I willing to sacrifice all levels of my personal privacy and freedoms to catch him? No I'm not. We spend enough coin on security and law enforcement in this country to be competent enough to track these dudes down and kill them without abridging the rights and freedoms of innocent people

Agreed. However, I'll save my outrage for instances where freedoms actually are being infringed upon rather than getting bent out of shape every time a bill is proposed whether it infringes on freedoms or not. This proposed bill, does not.

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


The argument was over original intent. Clearly from the citation they felt that they should change the intent of the commerce clause.

It will be the same arguments made when they decide to start regulating the internet.

So shoe prints can link a criminal to a crime scene.

Should we not provide an ID when we purchase shoes now?

Then subjects can easily be tracked down to who bought that type of shoe in that size.

Why would that be absurd and not providing an ID for a cell phone?