The Right to Use a Cell Phone

It's getting costlier: thanks to a new provision in the Federal Communications Law signed by President Calderón, would-be cell phone users will have to provide a photocopy of an official identification, a fingerprint, and register themselves in a national database in order to be granted permission to use one.

This is a bit disturbing. First of all, that's a lot of information to hand over to any government, especially one that has a history of abusing its citizens. Who's going to have access to the information? Some of the members of the kidnapping group that killed Fernando Martí were federal police; how can the government ensure that other criminal bands won't have access to priviledged information?

Second, how exactly is the government going to use this information? I'm not saying it couldn't be useful, but in a country where the police often ignore evidence and neglect to investigate, the burden of proof is on them. If there is an attempted extortion by telephone, and the would-be victim turns in the number, what then? Who's going to be in charge of investigating the crime? Since the kidnapping bands will likely have a register of the numbers they called, won't this open the victims up to retribution? The details need to be made public.

Lastly, if the goal is to prevent extortion by phone, wouldn't a public-education campaign be an easier, cheaper, and potentially more effective way to combat the crime?