Organized Identity Theft

Given the recent intrusions into major databases (such as Choice Point and others), passing laws and enabling resources to go after this type of activity is crucial. This activity bespeaks the invlovement of professional organized crime. One could also speculate that some of these organizations are tied to organized terrorist groups.

Why do you think the target of 911 was the World Trade Center? Part of the intent was to destabilize the economy, which in fact it did. With the rise of international ties to fraud and the attacks on personal data via the internet, we must begin to address the problem this creates to the economy.

The "Great Depression" was fueled by a public mistrust of the banking system. Today, Cashier's Checks and Government Postal Money Orders, which were once solid instruments are no more. This is due to the abundance of "Advance Fee" schemes circulating on the internet. Note that in most of these cases, the money is sent overseas and foreign nationals are involved. I seriously doubt if Choice Point's customers have a high level of trust in them right now.

On a personal level, identity theft is devasting to the individual. When done on a large scale it destroys the credibility of institutions, we are supposed to trust.

Dianne Feinstein, Demorcrat California and Patrick Leahy, Democrat, who routinely are champions of privacy rights, have called for an investigation and should be commended for doing so.

Ask anyone involved in investigating "White Collar Crime" and the resources allocated to it are minimal.


http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1770433,00.asp