HATMAN

I have 4 prepaids but I am not a crook, I don't think so

anyway... http://www.todaysthv.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=41185

To buy the prepaid cell phone, we took a trip to a retailer in Little Rock. We simply pulled the phone off of the rack, grabbed a prepaid phone card to program our minutes, paid the cashier and left. No muss, no fuss and no background checks.

Mark Watson is the Vice President of Marketing with the Cellular and Satellite Warehouse in Jacksonville. He says, "The sale of the phones is an outlet for people who don't qualify for the traditional monthly billing phones."

And because in most cases almost no information is required at the time of purchase, these handy little gadgets are becoming a useful tool for some criminals-- primarily drug dealers.

Ten years ago, the issue was with pagers. People would come in and buy pagers and use fake ID. A lot of time the places that sold the pager didn't require ID at all. They got the money up front, and they'd set the pager up and turn it on. The people who'd use the pagers illicitly would go to the malls for drug deals and they'd work from pay phones. That way, the phone calls couldn't be traced.

Lieutenant Terry Hastings with Little Rock Police says, "Any type of electronic device, any type of cell phones, pagers have always posed a challenge to law enforcement, and sometimes we run behind on this technology."

Lt. Hastings says the city doesn't track the number of crimes involving prepaid cellular devices, but when faced with the problem, detectives are prepared as are other central Arkansas law enforcement agencies like the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department.

John Rehrauer with the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department says, "Technology is changing all of the time. But our abilities are changing as well. We have abilities to do tracking and work with phone companies that we didn't have, even a year ago. That's in constant change."

Some states began considering legislation to require customer information when they buy prepaid phones. Arkansas is not one of those states, but some lawmakers see the value of such a law.

State Representative David Johnson of Little Rock says, "I recall cases as a prosecutor where tracking down phone records to a certain phone was part of the critical evidence in putting together a case that we were later able to prove at trial."

Recording information from people who buy prepaid cell phones could be a great help to law enforcement who, after the fact, are trying to track down someone who may have used a prepaid cell phone to commit a crime.

For now, retailers and cell phone dealers police themselves. And as criminals work to become more technologically savvy, detectives try to constantly remain one step ahead.

Rehrauer says, "We're not interested in the criminal element knowing everything we can do. As we talk, they're always trying to get that leg up, and we need that leg up, so we look at situations like this and say, 'It's better they don't know.'"

We spoke with representatives from both Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Both retailers limit customers to buying two cell phones at a time.

As for the possibility of a state law requiring more information, Representative Johnson said more research is needed to determine the value of the bill without infringing on privacy and retail interests.

Other states currently considering bills for more customer information on prepaid cell phones include Massachusetts, New Jersey, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

mingkee

I also have 2 prepaids, used when the main line is busy, it's used for internet too

NotSmellyPrepaid

As I've said before, when anonymous phones are outlawed, only outlaws will have anonymous phones. We don't need more laws, we need fewer lazy detectives. It's not who the phone is registered to that matters, it who is called from the phone that tells the tale.

Caller ID was a big step in the right direction for putting control back in the hands of the person answering the phone, but the ability to change phone numbers and registration info on a whim lends me much greater control than Caller ID offers. I don't get phone calls from people I don't want to talk to anymore because they simply have no idea where to find my number. And I like it like that, lol!

And I don't have any illusions that anonymous phones are truly anonymous. If you want proof that they're not, take a GoPhone phone number and establish an account for it on Cingular's website. You can then track city & state where every call was made from, the number called, length of call, etc. Tracfone (perhaps the epitome of anonymity when it comes to prepaid phones?) runs some of its phones off the Cingular network. While access to these features is disabled by Cingular for Tracfone users, I'm sure law enforcement could access the records in a heartbeat, with or without a warrant.

LIBERTARIANS AND THE PRIVACY OF FRIENDS

http://www.theclairefiles.com/Personal/libspriv.html

Okay, I'm seriously rambling now... Off to bed... :-)

MobilePrincess

Which prepaid carrier are you using for your internet? I used to get free Wap on TMobile To Go but unfortunately it is no longer available in my area.