Re: DA Wants to Restrict Pre-Paid Cell Phones

The Montgomery County, PA (suburb of Philadelphia) district attorney
> wants to restrict pre-paid cell phones. > I find this idea very troubling, kind of Big Brother. Does anyone > agree with the DA? > "To get a prepaid phone, all you have to do is plunk down your cash > and walk out of the store -- no paperwork necessary. Castor says > that's a problem for his detectives because they can't track down the > owner of the phone." > For full story please see: >
formatting link
> [public replies please] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the way the DA would search > for such a person would be the same way he located anyone else; he > would subpoena the sales records. He would ask the seller of the > phone to produce the record of whom the phone was sold to, the > 'mystery caller' as it were. Ditto for any 'non-stationary' phone. > Now, granted, the buyer may have plunked down cash and given a > false ID for the purchase, but I am sure many buyers also used > credit cards or a check.

*SNICKER*

When was the last time you had to show ID to purchase anything (alcoholic beverages excluded) using cash, at Wall-mart, Best Buy, or your favorite grocery store?

There _aren't_ any records of "who" the phone was sold to to be produced. Just like the grocery stores *could*not* produce a list of who had recently bought Tylenol`when the poison-tainted product was discovered on the shelves a number of years ago. _OR_ who had bought 'suspect' produce in the recent "e. coli" scares.

The retailer simply _doesn't_ collect that information.

That lack of _any_ data (not to mention 'reliable' data) on the purchaser's identity is =exactly= what the above-mentioned DA is complaining about.

The DA also might try dialing the number under some pretense and > seeing what he can find out that way. PAT]

_That_ has been proven to be practical and effective in some circumstances. Unfortunately, newspaper, and especially TV, reporters have written about the kind of techniques law-enforcement has used to "social-engineer" such types into revealing themselves, and, as a result, those who even watch TV don't fall for that approach any more.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As a matter of fact, I went to my local drugstore here in Independence a few months ago, and looked on the shelves where the cold remedies are found. A sign on the shelf said that "Brand X (I forget which one I bought) is no longer on the shelves. Manufacturer has chosen to _not_ change its formulary, so under state law it is now available only from the pharmacist." I went over there to get it, and I had to sign the 'dangerous drug' registry. And if one bought 'too much' of it in one haul, eyebrows would be raised.

Now I grant you I could have scribbled 'Smith' or 'Jones' and taken a couple bottles of it, I suppose. And Walmart *is* sort of itchy these days about people buying large quantities of pre-paid phones, as per the news item from Detroit about a month ago. I was trying to suggest that the day may be coming that whether purchased by *cash* or by some method where an audit trail is available, stores will be required to account for their sales, the same as drug stores have to do now where the ingredients _which could be used_ to make meth are concerned. PAT]