Bill by Schumer and Cornyn would require ID to buy prepaid cellphones

[Newsjock]

Source: Washington Post

A bipartisan pair of Senate leaders have introduced a first-of-its-kind bill aimed at stopping terrorist suspects such as the would-be Times Square bomber from hiding their identities by using prepaid cellphones to plot their attacks.

The legislation sponsored by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) would require buyers to present identification when purchasing a prepaid cellphone and require phone companies to keep the information on file, as they do with users of landline phones and subscription-based cellphones. The proposal would require the carriers to retain the data for 18 months after the phone's deactivation.

... Civil liberties advocates have concerns about the proposal, saying there must be a role for anonymous communications in a free society. "They remain important for whistleblowers, battered spouses, reporters' sources," said James X. Dempsey, policy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology. And yet, he said, the space for such anonymous or pseudonymous communications has been narrowed. Pay phones, for example, have largely disappeared.

Privacy advocates worry that prepaid cellphone registration might be a step toward something even more worrisome in their view: identity registration to access the Internet. "I think everybody would admit in a free society there is a need for some ability to communicate without creating a full digital paper trail," Dempsey said. "We're just saying this proposal has to be considered in a broader context."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/26/AR2010052603693.html