Also remember that pre-paid phones require you add funds to your account on a regular basis, sometimes as frequently as monthly, even if you aren't using the phone. Miss a payment and you lose the number and registration and have to start all over again, including a trip to Florida.

One other thing to keep in mind is that some carriers (such as Tracfone) charge your account double minutes when you use the phone outside of the "home" area you set up at activation.

Good luck.

When you call in to activate the phone ask for a Florida area code (say your kids live there and you want them to be able to make local calls to you if anyone asks). When activating the phone give them a made up, or ghost, address in Florida. They will send some material there, but nothing you need. And, I doubt their info is sent first class, which means the Post Office will just discard it when they can't deliver it to you.

All you have to do to keep the phone active is buy additional minutes every 3 months using cards purchased for Cash at any Target store. BTW, it's easy to activate the minutes on the cards. So far as I know this works fine, although I bought my phone years ago and things may have changed. It's worth checking out, and the phones themselves are very inexpensive.

I can relate my experiences, having tried both your two options.

My first cellphone was an AT&T GoPhone that I purchased at an AT&T store in Portland, Oregon. My memory is a little hazy here, but as I recall, I had already established a ghost address in Alaska. The clerk insisted that the phone's SIM card be activated then and there, not later, and asked to see my driver's licence. I showed my passport, told him that I did not have the driver's licence with me, was visiting from Alaska, and gave him my Alaska street address. His computer system was not set up to accommodate the absence of a driver's licence, but I stood firm, gave him a home-printed business card with with Alaska address, and was ready to walk away. (I had previously walked away from a Radio Shack store that also offered GoPhones.) Eventually he called around for instructions from higher-ups in his organization on how to do this, and he activated the GoPhone using my passport as ID and my Alaska street address. I got a 907 area code on my GoPhone.

(The 907 cellphone number later proved useful as my Alaska home address when activating a prepaid reloadable NetSpend Visa debit card.)

Later, before visiting my brother in Australia, I purchased a unlocked GSM cellphone on the Internet (see Web link below) and a prepaid SIM card for use in Australia. It's important to get an UNLOCKED cell phone. If you try to buy one from one of the carriers in the USA, they will offer discounts for ;signing up for a service contract (typically a two-year commitment) and will cell phone with modified software that will only work their own SIM cards. In other words, your cellphone will be locked to a particular carrier, which can cause you to run up VERY expensive cellphone bills when roaming abroad.

I purchased a "tri-band" cellphone, as I understood that it would work both in the USA and in Australia. (I later learned that a more expensive "quad-band" might have been a better choice, as not all the cell-phone carriers in the USA are set up for full service with only "tri-band" phones.

To try out the GSM cell phone before my Australia trip, I also purchased (again, on the Internet, from Telestial) a SIM card for use in the USA. This is what, say, an European or an Australian could do when planning a trip to the USA.

The USA SIM card has to be activated with a particular cellular carrier in the USA. I visited an AT&T booth in a local shopping mall to have my USA SIM card activated. The salesman asked whether I had a tri-band or quad-band cellphone. When I told him a "tri-band" phone, he recommended that I try a local T-Mobile store instead, as AT&T's local GSM network has poorer coverage in my area for tri-band phones than for quad-band phones.

At the AT&T store, the salesman wanted to see a driver's license before activating my SIM card. I showed him my passport and gave him the address of my PMB here in town rather than my home address. He had never seen a passport before! - and initially entered my name using just the first and middle names. While this would have been convenient for privacy, unfortunately the PMB provider knows me by my last name. So he had to telephone more knowledgeable people higher up in his organization in order to get this corrected.

Activating the USA SIM card with T-Mobile seemed to require establishing a month-by-month prepaid account. That was an annoyance. After I returned from Australia, I just stopped paying the monthly bill, and eventually they will cancel the account and re-assign the phone number.

To summarize, Jessica, either of the options that you propose will work. I do recommend getting an Alaska ghost address before you purchase the phone, and also a local P.O. box or PMB.

Submitted Link #1: http://www.telestial.com/...

Other options do include AT&T, Tracfone, Verizon INPulse, etc., but those choices usually cost significantly more than $10/year to maintain after the first year. Pretty much all the prepaids cost about $80 to $100 for the FIRST YEAR. It's only T-mobile that sets itself apart from the pack by being so cheap for the second and subsequent years.

I checked the coverage map at T-Mobile.com before suggesting them - they appear to cover Thermopolis WY if that is indeed your true location. If it is not where you expect to be receiving/placing the majority of your calls, you need to check T-Mobile.com yourself on their coverage locator. Their coverage "footprint" isn't as big as Verizon and AT&T.

Tracfone uses different carriersn (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, USCellular are their main carriers) based on where you buy the Tracfone or where you tell the Tracfone website you intend to be using the phone. So if you go with Tracfone, you need to make sure that the Tracfone you purchase in Florida will actually work in Wyoming.

You can only use an unlocked GSM phone with GSM SIM cards from AT&T, T-Mobile, or other smaller carriers. Tracfone's SIM cards are NOT interchangeable, even between Tracfones. Tracfone uses a patented technology and locked phones, so that any SIM card exchanges have to be done through Tracfone, and once you do that (through them) it makes the original SIM card invalid for use in any other phone. You can still use Tracfone for your purposes, just make sure that the Florida zip code you activate it in uses a Tracfone-sponsored carrier that also has coverage in Wyoming.

There are yahoo groups specifically devoted to this issue (prepaid phones). You might check them out for further information.

I will be going to Florida, on vacation, in a few weeks. Would it be best to:

Option 1: buy a prepaid cell phone from Florida (e.g. TracPhone or GoPhone). Or

Option 2: would I have more versatility by buying an unblocked GSM phone (and switching SIM cards between Wyoming and Florida area codes)?

If Option 1 is best, do I keep the SIM card that is installed on the prepaid phone or purchase a separate SIM card, while in Florida, for the phone?

If Option 2 is best, do I have to show ID to purchase a pre-paid SIM card while in Florida?

... I'll leave this one for one of you sharp readers to answer.

Still, for Level 1 privacy, it should do the trick.

Oregon Revised Statutes, sections 247.965, 247.967, and 247.969 establish a procedure and definitions by which a voter may request that his/her residence address, by kept confidential and not disclosed to political parties, etc., provided that he/she provides a valid mailing address.

ORS 247.965 (2) reads, "The county clerk shall keep the residence address of an elector exempt from disclosure as a public record ... if the elector making the request demonstrates to the satisfaction of the county clerk that the elector's personal safety or the safety of any family member residing with the elector is in danger if the elector's address remains available for public inspection."

I read this as REQUIRING the clerk to grant your request if you meet certain conditions, but NOT requiring that the clerk deny the request if you don't meet the statutory conditions.

So I filled out the form, citing my concern about privacy, identity thest, data mining, etc., and requesting that the clerk exercise her discretion to grant my request for confidentiality. The lady who gave me the forms told me that she had never known the county clerk (in Marion County, Oregon) ever to deny such a request.

It's not required, but the clerk MAY grant a request not to disclose residence address (or last four digits of SSN, or birth date, etc.) if you just request that she do so. I have high hopes that my request will be granted.

You have to submit a new such request each time that you change your residential address, as that address determines which version of the ballot is sent to you.

... [Note to all readers: As I sometimes do, I added < p > to the end of each of the above paragraphs, to keep all the text from running together.
... If you want to make sure your paragraphs have a space between them, always add < p > but without the spaces.]

By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
ARLINGTON, Va. —
Airline passengers starting next year will be barred from boarding planes if they refuse to provide their full name and birth date, the government said Wednesday ... Comparing a passenger's first, middle and last name and birth date to the watch list will eliminate "most" false matches by more precisely identifying a passenger, Chertoff said. Travelers now must give airlines only a last name and first initial. . . . In a shift, airlines will give passenger information to the TSA to compare to the watch list . . . Travelers who book flights and don't give required information won't be able to print a boarding pass at home or at an airport kiosk, Hawley said. They will have to go to an airline counter and show an ID card with the required information. For passengers making last-minute reservations, the TSA will check their backgrounds in seconds and report results to airlines, Hawley said . . . . . . Security expert Bruce Schneier said it won't improve security because terrorists could buy a ticket using someone else's name.

... I am not as concerned about this as you are, Orlando. We are already showing picture ID at the airports, and we are already carrying a DL with our true name and date of birth.

As long as we can register vehicles and real estate in NM LLCs and use a ghost address in place of our true home address, we are relatively safe from those who would do us harm.