Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Schwarger, your host. On today's show,

prepaid phones, also known as burner phones. Just how problematic are these burner phones for

law enforcement and counterterrorism? These phones are adopted for a variety of reasons, sometimes just for personal

privacy and not having to deal with a major national carrier and a contract, but of course they are also

used for more nefarious purposes, potentially, like selling drugs or evading law enforcement

for whatever reason, and listeners who've watched shows like The Wire or other shows that deal with

the drug war will notice that burner phones are often a major plot point.

But now they're getting some attention from Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks

in Brussels and on the heels of the San Bernardino attacks and the ones in Paris as well.

Joining me to discuss this is Morgan Wright, a cybersecurity expert.

You can find him on TV discussing matters of cybersecurity for the major national media outlets.

He's also come on the podcast a couple times to talk about some matters of tech policy.

You can check out his work at Morganwright.us or Ident identity security.com Morgan welcome back to the show yes and thank you

this is fun and we were talking about all the you know you were surprised I came

back on the podcast after the treatment I got last time but actually the treatment

was good so I'm glad to be back thank you because yeah we have been getting some

angry letters from from past guests who are disgruntled by the horrible way that I treat people. I probably didn't

even offer you any food when you came in. No beverage or a hot tea. Yeah, just terrible. Terrible hosting,

but hopefully we can make up for it with an interesting discussion. So March 22nd, terrorists attacked Brussels Airport.

Over a dozen people died. It was pretty horrific. And what often happens with these terrorist attacks

is that there's an imperative for governments to just do something about it because people are in

a panic and they don't want to feel unsafe. But as I know, as I mentioned, the attacks were on March 22nd and March 23rd.

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