Friday, February 13, 2009
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - A St. Joseph Democrat is trying to move organized crime's abuse of disposable cell phones off track.
Rep. Ed Wildberger proposed legislation in a statehouse committee this week that would affect anyone trying to buy more than a handful of the phones. He suggested that their names and driver's license information be entered into a database, which the Missouri State Highway Patrol would be able to access - a database similar to the state's method of tracking Missourians who purchase certain medicines, such as pseudophedrine.
"It's just taking a tool away from criminals and terrorists that have infiltrated our society," Mr. Wildberger said to a House of Representatives personal privacy committee.
The service-plan-free, prepaid devices, sold under brand names such as TracFone, have become popular with criminals in Buchanan County because they are hard to trace, Mr. Wildberger said. Many thieves will use stolen credit cards to purchase the cell phones, he said.
Mr. Wildberger's HB 53 would require any person or business that buys six or more of the prepaid cell phones to provide photo identification at the point of sale. He said some retailers in St. Joseph already are voluntarily tipping off cops when their customers purchase multiple prepaid cell phones, but he wouldn't say which ones.
"We've seen bags of phones at search warrants," Capt. Mike Donaldson of the Drug Strike Force said.
Mr. Donaldson said cell phones have always been used as part of drug trafficking, but the inexpensive, disposable models that hit major retailers in recent years became much more prevalent in organized crime circles in Buchanan County.
He lauded the bill's efforts for creating a system similar to the pseudophedrine registry. The cold medicine is a main ingredient of methamphetamine.
"It didn't eliminate (meth) labs, but it drastically reduced them," Mr. Donaldson said. "Anything we can do that makes it harder for drug trafficking organizations to operate would make it better for the community."
The phone database also could help in cases of stalking, where prepaid cell phones often are used, said Mark Edwards, who testified Tuesday in favor of the bill on behalf of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police.
Rep. Jim Guest, R-King City, the committee chairman, said he intends to invite Mr. Wildberger back to the committee so members can hear more testimony and ask questions before voting. Mr. Guest said Thursday he wouldn't make up his mind on the bill until he hears more information, but he questioned if a cell phone registry would violate the privacy of people who are buying the phones as gifts or other legitimate purposes.
While he previously supported the statewide pseudophedrine registry, he discouraged last year's changes that now make Missourians show photo IDs for some other medications besides the meth ingredient.
"Once you start that, it keeps expanding and expanding and goes against my philosophy of protecting citizens' rights and freedoms," Mr. Guest said.
Alyson E. Raletz can be reached
at alysonraletz@npgco.com.
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Orliandor says...
Mr. Guest is correct. This is an invasion of privacy.
February 13, 2009 at 6:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
scrubnurse says...
"We've seen bags of phones at search warrants," Capt. Mike Donaldson of the Drug Strike Force said.
Hello.....Anything to get these dealers off the street! This week we did an organ procurement on THIRTEEN year old boy who was shot in the head by a drug dealer. I am sorry, but if this bill can stop things like this from happening, I don't have a problem with it.
For someone who is just buying this many phones for gifts, with no intention of doing anything illegal, what is it gonna hurt for their name to be in a database? If they are NOT using them for illegal activity, they won't be getting in any trouble right? (I am thinking there are probably very few people who would be buying this many phones for "gifts" at one time anyway).
February 13, 2009 at 7:51 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
heritage_sarahhochschwender says...
what is going to hurt to have your name in a database? if you aren't doing anything wrong.........?
if you chop down one tree on the side of a mountain, it doesn't make much difference. if you completely deforest the side of the same mountain, you have a mudslide that buries the community in the valley.
we are chopping down far too many Trees of Liberty.
February 13, 2009 at 8:08 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
HickFromSticks says...
Get a grip. Every police department, highway patrol, and the feds can track "any" cell phone, prepaid or not, any time, any day, anywhere you are. They "ping" cell towers to determine your location of your last call, like they did in KC last year when the young woman was taken from a Target in Kansas, transported to Missouri, raped and killed. Big Brother is already here!
February 13, 2009 at 8:10 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
StJoeMoe says...
Anyone stop and think that maybe these phones are traded for drugs, the old barter system?
Doh!
February 13, 2009 at 8:42 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
10377586 says...
I think it's a great idea, why would anyone buy that many phones at one time anyway? If it upsets anyone they can buy three or four at a time and not have to worry about it, but even that will create an additional transaction which will help Law Enforcement catch them if being used for no good.
February 13, 2009 at 8:54 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Mr_America says...
I have nothing to hide and will never need to buy several prepaid cell phones at one time.
February 13, 2009 at 9:34 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Harley_Blackwell says...
Big Brother is watching!
February 13, 2009 at 10:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
meow says...
About 5 years ago, our home was broken into. Prior to the break in, we had TONS of phone calls at all times of the day/night, which we later found out were made to scope out when we were home, and our neighbors (who were also broken into) were receiving the same calls from the same number. These calls were made from a prepaid cell phone, and the police were never able to trace the person, other than saying that the calls were from a Kansas number.
If prepaid phones were registered, the police may have been able to find out who violated our privacy and stole our belongings. I say register the phones - if you're not planning on committing a crime with the phone, what's the problem?
February 13, 2009 at 10:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
kunzwaylo says...
For all those people that don't mind giving up their right to privacy, please feel free to go register with all of your private information to their local police. the rest of us will keep our constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy.
prepaid cell phones are traced and tracked by triangulating tower pings. once the location is learned then the police look up all information regarding the frequented locations such as homes, frequented restaurants, retail stores with cameras, etc. it takes only hours to identify a user.
a picture ID required to purchase multiple phones is a dummies approach to precluding criminal use. do you think criminals might use fake ID's? in addition, lets say one requires a photo of the purchaser. this will be met by the criminal paying a teenager a few hundred dollars to go buy a bag full of prepaids and having his picture taken.
you might ask why postpaid cell phones are not as much a criminal problem. the answer is that credit history, SSN, credit cards are generally required to instantiate a plan. credit history, interestingly, is very difficult to mimic but of course not impossible to steal with identity theft.
one can never eliminate criminal use of otherwise convenience technology - we can only make it less convenient. the best way to do this is to require a credit card and driver's license to purchase prepaids just as is done with rental cars. but then we eliminate the millions of youngsters that purchase and use prepaids.
if this were done criminals would go back to using pay phones to transact business or would use stolen cards and fake IDs. this only makes their activity less convenient while severely prohibiting freedoms of the rest of law abiding citizens
May 23, 2009 at 8:47 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )