ID Laws and Increased Border Control

Congress has approved an additional 82 Billion for the war in Iraq. Attached to this are measures to hire additional border security agents, toughen asylum laws, build fences at both borders and requires the states to begin issuing more uniform driver's licenses. It also requires them to verify the people getting them more carefully.

Besides protecting ourselves from terrorists, identity theft has doubled recently. A lot of this can be attributed to internet fraud.

As I stated in a earlier post, this will (and has) raised privacy issues.

http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2005/05/counterfeit-identification.html

In the end, it will be interesting to see if any of this stems the flow of fraud and what the criminals will do to go around the enhanced measures. Interestingly enough, we have enhanced the security features around our currency and we still have a lot of counterfeit money going around. Here is a story on some of the latest counterfeit money going around.



http://www.wndu.com/news/052005/news_42110.php.

Five Dollar Bills are bleached and then a hundred dollar bill is photocopied on top of it. These are showing up all over and the best way for a lay person to identify them is by holding them up to the light. On the counterfeit items, the watermark on the right side is Abraham Lincoln versus Benjamin Franklin. These items defeat the counterfeit pens routinely used by businesses to identify counterfeit currency.

In the technologically advanced world of today, there is a counter measure developed for every measure put out there. In the end, education and communication are probably the best way to defeat what ails us.