Oh my aching ass. Texas Senator looking to ban prepaid cellphones

[Horse with no Name]

What the fuck? What about people who cannot afford Sprint, et al raping charges or do not qualify for a cellphone? I have a Sprint plan but I also keep a Virgin mobile phone handy with a few minutes on it.
This is outrageous.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/020108dntexgangsphones.f58789.html
A state senator and Dallas police officials are taking aim at prepaid cellphones in a strategy to fight criminal gangs that operate on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

“Criminal gangs have become a major threat to our quality of living,” state Sen. John Carona said during a news conference at Dallas police headquarters. “They reach from the street corners of Dallas to the four corners of the globe, literally.”

During Thursday’s news conference, the senator proposed making prepaid phones harder to get. He said that initiative would be the first of many to combat gangs.

“Prepaids are popular with criminals because they are cheap, accessible, untraceable, and discardable,” he said. “They don’t even have to bother blocking or disguising the phone number, which means if the crime involves a scam, your caller ID registers a regular number with a local area code, so your guard goes down, and you don’t even know what’s coming.”

>>>snip
“This legislation will lead the nation in taking prepaid cellphones out of the criminal equation,” he said.

[Stephanie]

1. criminals often use cars to get away, too

we should ban them

[Angela Shelley]

6. and some senators don´t use their brains to think.

We should ban them.

[Winterblues]

14. They wear clothes as well

No one should be allowed to have anything because criminals do too.

[KatyaR]

39. And sneakers, too--

don't forget the shoes.

Oh, and bandanas, as well . . . .

[rocktivity]

23. YOU FORGOT GUNS!

And knives. And baseball bats. And ski masks. So what if banning them would unescessarily inconvenice the innocent the law-abiding? The priority is to keep them SAFE!

:eyes:
rocknation

[Schema Thing]

2. what.the.fuck.

[LisaM]

3. I have a pay as you go plan. I wouldn't change it.

I never have a cell phone bill, and I don't want one. (I think it's slightly different from the phones that you just buy and discard though - I had to show ID, etc., and I can change it to a plan if I want).

[dysfunctional press]

7. same here.

i don't use my cellphone very often at all, so the pay as you go plan works best for me.

btw- did you know that verizon's pay as you go plan charges you a daily fee, whether you use the phone or not? i discovered that the hard way when i picked up my phone one day after two or so weeks, and all my minutes were gone. after that, so was verizon.

[LisaM]

28. I have AT&T. They charge you something like $1 if you USE it

But not if you don't.

Love my GoPhone! (Plus if you buy $100 worth of minutes at once, they seem to always add in an extra $15 or $20).

[dysfunctional press]

32. yeah, i have cingular/at&t.

works for me.

[Matariki]

35. me too. $25 for 3 months and i always have minutes rollover.

i use it mostly for quick calls when i'm out and to have for emergencies.

i doubt this stupid bit of legislation will pass. but who knows - maybe the wireless companies favor it. god knows their not making much money from the likes of me.

[AlCzervik]

4. that is some serious bs, i know plenty of people that have pre paid cell phones

mostly for their kids and after seeing some of the bills they used to get when they were under contract i don't blame for going the pre paid route. Me thinks that lawmaker has seen one too many episodes of Law & Oder.

[LynneSin]

9. I would never put my kids on pre-paid

If the parent happens to have a plan they just need to ask about the features and know how to set them up for their kids to avoid abuse of their cell phone plan. Just because a provider offers the service doesn't mean every cell phone has to have it. My nephew is setup with an off-shoot $10/month plan off his parents that limits minutes & texting.

[High Plains]

21. What's wrong with pre-paid?

[Atman]

40. Virtually all pre-paid plans are just as expensive as a regular plan.

The only real difference is in the credit check. There is none with a pre-paid, which makes it like a "Rent To Own" store for phones. We tried a couple of different pre-paids for our son, not wanting to add a line to our account, and thinking it would teach him some responsibility. But the trouble is, they ALL have some sort of minimum, which works out the at least the same as a regular plan, or worse. If I'm wrong, I'll eat one of the extra phones lying around my house. Virgin Mobile, AT&T, Trac Phone...they all had concocted some sort of gimmick which either took you unused minutes if you DIDN'T use your phone, or charged you a minimum "connect fee" which sounded cheap but when added up amounted to the same as a regular cell phone plan.

I recall Virgin's was "ONLY" 25 cents for the first minute of the first four calls made each day, then 10 cents a minute thereafter...for a kid or a person who actually uses their cell phone, that's $30 a month right there! Without even adding in the 10 cent minutes. Every other plan had a similar arrangement. They aren't a rip-off, they're simply an alternative way for the telcos to get the same amount of dough out of you even if you can't pass a credit check.

.

[Retrograde]

10. like the elderly, for emergencies

When my 80+ mother was still living alone we got her a pre-paid cell phone for use in emergencies away from home. She never had to use it, but it was useful in case she did have problems.

BTW, wasn't Dear Laura supposed to have taken care of all the gang problems by now?

[AlCzervik]

11. yeah Pickles has really dropped the ball.

[bluestateguy]

5. Big Government Conservatism strikes again

"The Texas Legislature is the National Labratory of Bad Ideas."

----Molly Ivins

[LynneSin]

8. Honestly - this is a very legitimate problem

But I think there is a way to fix this without affect those who prefer their pre-pay cell phones

People made the same complaints when ephredine based cold meds went behind the counter and yet studies have showed that states doing this have helped decreased the amount of meth produced

[High Plains]

20. Whatever it takes to win the crusade, eh?

So what if millions of cold sufferers are inconvenienced?

So what if the poor people who are the main market for pre-paid cell phones get screwed?

So what if the Fourth Amendment gets trashed?

So what if we now have 40,000 SWAT raids a year?

So what if we have half a million drug war prisoners?

No, this isn't a legitimate problem, it's a totalitarian overreach by a wacko Texas legislator.

As for your meth lab claim, it is indeed true. Home cooked meth is down. More potent, high quality meth from Mexico is up. That's why I always referred to those cold medicine laws as the Mexican Methamphetamine Market Share Enhancement Act.

By the way, if you think silly law enforcement crap like this is going to lead to victory in the drug war, I strongly suggest you check out the following analysis from Stratfor, the Austin-based analysts: "The Geopolitics of Dope" http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/geopolitics_dope

It's about trying to crack down on the Mexican cartels. Good luck with that.

[LynneSin]

22. Get off your high horse

:eyes:

[High Plains]

26. Got nothing of substance to say?

[karlrschneider]

24. Bingo.

That old 'end justifies the means' bullshit.
:grr:

[allalone]

41. perhaps they skipped our state in the report.

meth is still everywhere

[rucky]

12. Texas senator introduces law to throw baby out with bathwater. n/t

[VP505]

13. More stupidity

from the elected, lets see, I wonder what party he belongs to? I read the article and this much worse than what it appears, a few excerpts:

• For instance, government-issued identification would be required to buy a prepaid phone.
• Under the proposal, prepaid cell phone service providers also would have to keep phone records and make them accessible to law enforcement agencies, said the senator, who chairs the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security.

[Horse with no Name]

15. Not hard to figure that out

He belongs to the scared nelly party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carona

[TahitiNut]

31. From the same folks who think 10,000,000 'lost' White House emails is no big deal.

After all, the PEOPLE must be surveilled ... NOT the government. Fucking fascist bullshit! :grr:

[Horse with no Name]

34. Aint that the truth. n/t

[lonestarnot]

43. Sickening.

[guitar man]

16. wow

an anti-business Repuke? prepaid phones are a business, so he must be anti-business, right? :shrug:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

17. Just providing an ID to get a prepaid cell won't do a thing.

You'd have to have a national registry on which these transactions were kept for what he's proposing to be effective. Which would be very expensive and isn't something we can afford considering the size of our national debt.

More feel good legislation in my opinion.

[Horse with no Name]

18. They will cut kids free lunches to pay for another "terror tool"

Don't think that they won't. If they want this, the poor will suffer to get it.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

25. Somewhere there's a neocon in fits over those lost phone records

You're right, they'd give up kids free lunches and they'd even toss in public education if they thought they could get away with it. Just to get their paws on them. However, on a federal level I'm holding out hope that they will soon lose their power.

Here in Texas it's another story, however. I keep telling my friends that the marginalization of Texas is eminent. When it comes about there's not going to be anyone to blame but themselves and their inability to question and see beyond the hype.

[leeroysphitz]

19. I heard that some criminals even use guns including hand guns and assault rifles.

Maybe we should ban... Nah. Never mind. :sarc:

[Indenturedebtor]

27. No no no

You don't get it. It's not death or the imposition on your freedom by your fellow citizens/government you need to fear! It's bad things being done by terrists, crimnuls, homos, and libruls that you need us to protect you from.

So just give us a little bit more of your freedom in this one little way, and this time we'll protect you... we just need a little more. Oh and while you're at it, can we have some more of your children for our war? Oh and some money?

[northzax]

29. so? then they will just steal them

or clone them. It's not all that difficult, you know. requiring ID for a communications device is just silly.

[allalone]

42. poor people will take the hit and the criminals

will just steal phones.

[benEzra]

30. I'll bet they're too hard to warrantlessly wiretap... (n/t)

[daleo]

33. If you knew this guy's campaign contributors

I bet that would explain it. This probably means more money for big telcos.

[End Of The Road]

38. This is the best list I could find

of contributions by category. Not much help I'm afraid.

http://www.vote-smart.org/finance.php?can_id=5475

[daleo]

45. Good research

He is consistently getting a fair bit of money from the category "communications and technology", so that might be phone companies.

[JerseygirlCT]

36. Shoes! Let's ban 'em -- a majority of criminal gang members

wear them, so let's ban all shoes.

[lonestarnot]

44. Let's ban water drinking without a state chip, criminal gangs could drink it all.

[east texas lib]

37. So get ready...

To smile when your picture for your shiny new government issued cellphone license is
taken! :mad:

[Snarkturian Clone]

46. When I used to teach in Trenton

some of the gang kids would carry like 6 prepaid phones-- so I guess it is part of the problem-- but banning them is stupid.