Americans criticize Canada for lax security (often with good cause) — yet, you persist in leaving a gaping hole in your security, by allowing unregistered “burners”.
Terrorists, or criminal organizations are able to get a (for most purposes) secure communications system for the price of a few disposable cell phones. In Canada, everyone has to provide identification, before their cell phone is activated. While this does open the door for state surveillance, it also closes a huge gap in the security “wall”.
If we didn't have cause to tighten security in so many other intrusive ways (shoe inspections at airports; passports, biometric ID, no-fly lists, etc.) then I would be 100% against registering cell phones. Considering that we do need most of those other security measures — why leave a gaping hole?
What I hate most about all this is that we’re allowing al-Qaeda to change our way of life, which is what its goal was all along. We’re just getting a little taste of how bad it would be under its rule.
If I had any say in the matter, I wouldn’t limit our freedoms at all, but theirs (anyone who has an unacceptably high probability of being al-Qaeda; e.g., all arabs and muslims, for starters)