Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Cell Phones and Privacy
As I own and use a prepaid cell phone,
I would continue to be a proponent of their existence. The main
reason I use a prepaid cell phone is because I have no desire to have
any part of a phone plan. I rarely, maybe 1-2 times a week, use my
cell phone, its main purpose is to have in case of an a emergency,
and having a prepaid cell phone allows me to do that at a cheap
price. If there is an added benefit that my phone cannot be tracked
than that just adds a bonus onto the package, but not something I
find to be a necessity. These examples, of emergency use and cost
effectiveness, act as legitimate uses of for prepaid cell phones.
With all that being said, I would not object to a more stringent
policy on obtaining a prepaid cell phone. I see no harm in initially
having to register a prepaid cell phone that would allow a number to
be backtracked to a purchaser. This may not be an effective
preemptive measure against criminals, but you would be able to trace
the phone back to a real origin
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I agree with this, particularly your reasoning for using a prepaid phone rather than chaining yourself to a plan... that should absolutely be an option for those who want it. However, I still feel odd about any sort of registry when it comes to the phones. If an innocent citizen wants to go off the grid (like Ratliff did) and still have mobile phone access, shouldn't they be able to? Besides, I feel that it's the responsibility of the government to find ways to combat crime that don't cut down opportunities for law abiding citizens.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this, there are many people just like you that use prepaid cell phones. There is no reason for them to control it by law or ban it because many non-criminals use prepaid phones. Registry of a prepaid cell phone is a good idea so the criminals would get caught, but then again they would just stop using prepaid phones and find other ways to not get tracked.
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