Lawmakers pushing to make owning an unregistered prepaid phone illegal

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

In the context of "Mexico", that requirement is entirely laughable. No offense.

 

Have an underling register it, use it yourself, let him/her go to jail.

Non taken, mainly because it's 100% accurate.

 

Also: jail's a fucking joke for these guys. They basically have complete control, unlimited supply of drugs, hookers, anything they can possibly want inside jail and regular, minor offense criminals not affiliated get extorted even more while doing their time they just end up joining vs risking their families on the outside.

[Trik'Stari]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

Non taken, mainly because it's 100% accurate.

 

Also: jail's a fucking joke for these guys. They basically have complete control, unlimited supply of drugs, hookers, anything they can possibly want inside jail and regular, minor offense criminals not affiliated get extorted even more while doing their time they just end up joining vs risking their families on the outside.

I believe I said it once before, and you got mad about it.

 

Mexico has laws?

 

Sadly the US is going the same route. Only our "laws" are created by the "Cartels".

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

I believe I said it once before, and you got mad about it.

 

Mexico has laws?

I don't recall?.....I mean jails are a joke we just recently had a mutiny with multiple deaths and such.

 

As for laws, sure he have em. They're basically unenforceable for anyone that has enough money to cheat an bribe his way out of a real sentence though, but there are laws normal people do have to abide to.

[Trik'Stari]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

I don't recall?.....I mean jails are a joke we just recently had a mutiny with multiple deaths and such.

 

As for laws, sure he have em. They're basically unenforceable for anyone that has enough money to cheat an bribe his way out of a real sentence though, but there are laws normal people do have to abide to.

So basically, the US but a bit more "cowboy".

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

So basically, the US but a bit more "cowboy".

It's substantially easier to bribe police offers, even prosecutors and judges i.e. we technically don't allow gambling but for years we had fully functional Casinos in my city because the owners basically bribed a bunch of judges that provided unlimited "temporal" injunctions on their favor, they just recently cracked down on them now that (conveniently) the state government changed to a different political party.

[Stuff_]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

When you are contract, you are already registered.  The mass majority of people in the U.S, and even in Canada, are on contract for their phone, unlike the rest of the world who prefer pre-paid (which also boost competition, as people can switch every month or even week, providers as they feel like. Their number remains the same. And hence why they have usually better service and/or cheaper price than here in Canada and U.S). So I don't think it affects many.

 

Most criminals and terrorist seems to never encrypt their phone, but go with burner phones. So this won't prevent much, but it will just make it a bit harder for them to operate.

Well, even if not on a "contract" you are still registered with a service provider. They need all your information for you to sign up, and they approve you.

After that, whatever phone you choose to have is generally fine (as long as the bands utilized are the same as your locale and provider). However, the carrier can still see your IMEI of the device, and so they can still tie it to a specific account.

 

 

Also on the topic, I don't know if it's really specifically for terrorists or anything. But it is just closing a loophole that we have. I don't think it's meant to be as blown out of proportion like this.

[Nowak]

Of course California is pushing for this shit.

[Stuff_]

1 hour ago, CommandMan7 said:

Once something becomes inconvenient for the government it suddenly becomes illegal. Seems typical. 

 

But for real, although phones do support a lot of crime, this bill's flaw is that it apparently ignores the fact that there's this thing called the internet where people can go communicate anonymously. If anything, this will make it harder on law enforcement, as the government doesn't nearly have as much control of the internet as it has over phone records.

The government doesn't have much control of the internet? Starting with Net Neutrality, in theory, they have A LOT of control over the internet. 

There were proponents of the net neutrality bill that suggested government installed software (and likely backdoors) into routers that way the government could ensure that the ISPs weren't throttling/fast-laning etc. 

 

It didn't make it to the final bill. However, it was thought about. 

[CommandMan7]

11 minutes ago, Stuff_ said:

The government doesn't have much control of the internet? Starting with Net Neutrality, in theory, they have A LOT of control over the internet. 

There were proponents of the net neutrality bill that suggested government installed software (and likely backdoors) into routers that way the government could ensure that the ISPs weren't throttling/fast-laning etc. 

 

It didn't make it to the final bill. However, it was thought about. 

Relatively speaking, of course. The government has access to essentially all phone records, but the internet has encryption and is so large there's no way the government could search it all.

[Stuff_]

2 minutes ago, CommandMan7 said:

Relatively speaking, of course. The government has access to essentially all phone records, but the internet has encryption and is so large there's no way the government could search it all.

Remember, the NSA is a faction of the government. 

[CommandMan7]

22 minutes ago, Stuff_ said:

Remember, the NSA is a faction of the government. 

Yeah, the biggest revelation that ever came out of snowden was that the NSA collects phone record metadata. 

[Yoinkerman]

Eh underage kids really don't need to be registered, one of the other huge markets for pay as you go phones

[Whorax]

3 hours ago, wcreek said:

While I see myself as something along the lines of a Democratic Socialist, I do think trying to ban something isn't going to (generally) solve the issue, it just makes it either impossible or harder for people who were going to do things legally.

 

I'm not a huge fan of guns, but hey if that's what makes you feel safe, or if you're just target shooting for leisure that's cool too. Personally I find Archery more fascinating than firearms but to each their own as it really should be.

 

Gun related deaths are sort of a public health issues, but the guns are the tool not the subject doing the killing it's sort of like an assistant but not the actual criminal. While I don't totally understand why one would need "assault" or semi-automatic rifles for hunting, target practice or self defense, I don't think that they should be totally prohibited. 

As far as registering prepaid phones to prevent terrorism/crimes, it doesn't totally fix the problem it just ends up causing more problems than it creates. 

@AresKrieger That might work, I do think that it's important to be certain that someone who is seeking refugee isn't going to pose a threat to the people of that nation that person is seeking refugee in. 

While nothing I'm about to say is an attempt to start an argument with you (you responded with a courteous response, which is more than what most people on this forum would do, I respect that) I'd like to just point out a statistic and say some more on the topic to prove a sort of point. I'm sure it's nothing you haven't heard before though.

 

Vehicle deaths in the US for 2014 was ~32,700 people. Firearms related deaths totaled about 12,600 according to this source I found. Now there are probably some reasons for this i.e. not everyone and their mother owning a firearm in the US, unlike vehicles, yadda yadda yadda, but there are so many people who the media and leftist gov't have scared the shit out of people and have tricked them into believing firearms are evil.

 

Like you said, guns are the tools and it's the person behind the trigger doing the killing. If I run someone over, that car isn't responsible for the killing. If I kill someone with a hammer, the hammer isn't at fault. You get my point. It isn't the gun's fault. It's the persons fault. The present day US has turned firearms into a societal problem where lack of responsibility and general safety of the public isn't at the hands of the citizens themselves, it's rather the work of a firearm--an inanimate object; it's an inanimate object that is 100% safe if you have the proper, incredibly simple, training on how to handle it. If you can work a safety and not point at things you don't plan on shooting and keep your finger off the trigger unless you plan on pulling it on one firearm, then you can do it with them all.

 

As for why people want true assault weapons (which is a fully automatic weapon. Some people don't even know that much) and other semi-automatic firearms, well I believe everyone has their own reasons, but I have two in particular. 1) because owning an automatic weapon is like owning a sports car. Seriously. People buy Challenger Hellcats over Darts because they're more fun to drive. Same thing with automatics assuming you just throw lead down range. 2) This is the important one. In the case that the government ever attempts to infringe on the rights of the people, you better believe that automatic weapons will be the peoples' best chance at reclaiming their rightful power. When the gov't has assault rifles, the people won't even stand a snowball's chance in Hell with bolt action hunting rifles, shotguns, and pistols.

 

You're probably correct in terms of not needing them for typical self defense. Firstly because if you're in a home defense scenario there's nothing better that'll stop someone without over penetrating and potentially hitting innocents on the other side of the wall than a 12ga. shell full of buckshot. Second, if you're in a life threatening situation on the streets and you're carrying there's really only one option and that's a pistol because you can't carry around a rifle or shotgun in public without disturbing people and becoming a target yourself.

 

Nonetheless, we all have our own different opinions. While I don't agree with yours based on what you said about being a Democratic Socialist, I respect your opinions and beliefs and I certainly respect you not trying to throw them down my throat and/or condemning me for having different views and values.

[Guest]

It's horrible how not everything everyone does gets monitored.

[Roawoao]

This is not exactly controversial when you buy a contract sim card you have to register your name and for countless services you have to register your name and the police can track you down via such information. It is just pre-paid sims that currently do not require valid identification information to register on the network. In countless countries with far greater use of pre-paid cards/phones registration is already mandatory even for tourists.

 

Also by requiring registration if they use false information to register that is committing identity fraud instead of not having any rule against it. It basically creates a disincentive to abuse pre-paid cards for illegal activities and if ignored would be a criminal act in itself.

[Trixanity]

6 hours ago, Whorax said:

Snip  

While I would agree that firearms aren't a problem on their own, the problem is the people who operate them. The USA is incredibly dysfunctional socially speaking. That leads to problems even without guns. Adding guns makes it much worse. 

 

To put it simply: a large number of people (I'd say the vast majority) are not qualified to own a simple handgun, let alone a full automatic assault rifle. 

 

There are places in the world where even assault rifles wouldn't be a problem but those societies are functioning very well and have virtually no poor people and with a better standard of living across the board meaning less social problems meaning less gun violence. 

 

Now the flip side, like with this phone registration law, is that it only hits law abiding citizens. Hardened criminals have no issues getting their hands on either unregistered burner phones or unregistered assault rifles. 

 

 

[Trixanity]

10 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

When you are contract, you are already registered.  The mass majority of people in the U.S, and even in Canada, are on contract for their phone, unlike the rest of the world who prefer pre-paid (which also boost competition, as people can switch every month or even week, providers as they feel like. Their number remains the same. And hence why they have usually better service and/or cheaper price than here in Canada and U.S). So I don't think it affects many.

Many places outside the US are on contracts even though pre-paid is freely available. However the carriers and contracts are much different. 

 

Here they generally don't lock you in, so you're only obligated to pay for the first month of your subscription meaning you can switch carrier every month (and also, locked phones don't exist). Your carrier is obligated to allow you to take your phone number with you. You can buy the phones themselves on a contract separate from your service subscription with no added added fees or interest rates through your carrier and you'd be able to switch to another service provider despite that. And you can at any time pay out the contract anyway, so if you paid your phone over a two year period, you can pay out the remainder after a couple months and break free immediately and with no added fee. 

 

There are also many service providers. Probably 15-20 (probably more; so many exist and are very obscure) in a tiny country. Although very few own actual cell towers (aka MVNO) and many of those MVNOs are owned by the large providers who also own the networks. However competition is very fierce, so fierce that they (the carriers) complain about how low prices are, which speaks volumes. All the result of heavy competition and strict consumer-friendly laws. 

[Monkey Dust]

I expect this legislation, assuming it can actually be enforced, will just push up mobile phone theft.

[Belgarionbg]

13 hours ago, Nineshadow said:

If you think about it, the bill does have a point, even more so in the light of recent events. But there is a huge problem with it : criminals (and terrorists because that's what's fancy these days) will probably still be able to get burner phones. The bill will just end up hurting the average person's privacy, while developing a new market for "underground" phones for the people this bill is actually addressing. It does more harm than good.

 

Read more : http://www.androidauthority.com/bill-would-make-prepaid-phone-owners-register-682373/

For the last few years my country have enforced every prepaid plan to be registered with passport information. The funny thing is that the way our law is constructed there are people with over 10 000 prepaid cards registered to their names. There is no mechanism to limit this.

Recently in the news there was info for some homeless man with near 16 000 cards registered to his name. The man said - "people came to me and offered me money to use my information and I see no problem in that."

So yeah, the whole registration thing is a joke. There are no criminals arrested with the help of all gathered data.

[handymanshandle]

7 hours ago, Whorax said:

Nonetheless, we all have our own different opinions. While I don't agree with yours based on what you said about being a Democratic Socialist, I respect your opinions and beliefs and I certainly respect you not trying to throw them down my throat and/or condemning me for having different views and values.

Don't worry this isn't going to be an argument (Try to avoid those as much as possible )

I agreed with everything you had to say.

 

Anyways this is a clarification of sorts because I had redacted a sentence about a leaning of mine... I agree mostly with the Democratic Socialist but also to some degree with Libertarians.

Not sure if there's really a party that comes close to that. 

[Roawoao]

11 hours ago, Belgarionbg said:

For the last few years my country have enforced every prepaid plan to be registered with passport information. The funny thing is that the way our law is constructed there are people with over 10 000 prepaid cards registered to their names. There is no mechanism to limit this.

Recently in the news there was info for some homeless man with near 16 000 cards registered to his name. The man said - "people came to me and offered me money to use my information and I see no problem in that."

So yeah, the whole registration thing is a joke. There are no criminals arrested with the help of all gathered data.

You do understand how valuable watching that homeless man has been to the cops right. 16000 criminals all being watched.

 

Inversely when a criminal steals your info to falsely register your name and you report your identity theft when you get random mail that also creates a paper trail to follow. And when they get caught with "your" phone they can be arrested for both using false information and stealing "your" phone.

 

Without registration they can just use no information and it is perfectly legal.

[RustyZombie]

So making it illegal will stop people from using them?  Then we should also make drugs, murder, terrorism, etc. all illegal.

[Belgarionbg]

6 minutes ago, Roawoao said:

You do understand how valuable watching that homeless man has been to the cops right. 16000 criminals all being watched.

Hm, I didn`t think of that. But still there is not a single case reported as solved because they got the criminal through phone tracking. And this is from 2011 till now... So for me that decision was total fail.

[Roawoao]

5 hours ago, Belgarionbg said:

Hm, I didn`t think of that. But still there is not a single case reported as solved because they got the criminal through phone tracking. And this is from 2011 till now... So for me that decision was total fail.

Not all 16000 people are likely to be criminals either maybe just people that are paranoid. Criminals would likely use the second option I listed but this still leaves a paper trail and grounds for investigation/arrests/...

 

5 hours ago, RustyZombie said:

So making it illegal will stop people from using them?  Then we should also make drugs, murder, terrorism, etc. all illegal.

Well certainly don't make them all legal that wouldn't help at all. If murder, terrorism, genocide, jaywalking ... was all legal I'm not quite sure how this would help.

[RustyZombie]

14 hours ago, Roawoao said:

 

Well certainly don't make them all legal that wouldn't help at all. If murder, terrorism, genocide, jaywalking ... was all legal I'm not quite sure how this would help.

I was pointing out the fact that making something illegal won't stop criminals from breaking the law.  They are criminals because they break the law, after all.  And the argument that we should make things illegal simply because having it legal won't help is a pretty weak argument.