US Senate bill would require personal ID to buy a prepaid cellphone

People who wanted to make phone calls anonymously used to use pay phones. With pay phones being removed in most places and dirt cheap prepaid cellphones being available almost everywhere, it is only natural that people would start buying prepaid phones for disposable, anonymous use. The FBI has now endorsed legislation sponsored by Senators Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, that would require personal identification to be required at the point of sale for prepaid cellphones. FBI Director Robert Mueller has endorsed the bill for fighting terrorism and called it essential to the success of investigations.

Every day it seems like more and more of our privacy is being stripped away in the name of anti-terrorism. How exactly is the government going to know who purchased the cell phone at your local store? Are they going to require businesses to scan the personal identification and record it? This isn’t like age checking with alcohol and tobacco. The government wants to keep track of the data. It is sad that because something is used for nefarious acts, restrictions are imposed upon everyone. Similar to gun control laws, the bad guys are still going to get their prepaid cell phones without ID or with fake ID. It is the rest of us that are going to be restricted.