How much of our Social Security money is benefiting former illegal aliens in Mexico?

With predictions that Social Security might be bankrupt before many of us ever receive any benefits, money potentially being given to people not entitled to it, bothers some people.

Dr. Jerome R. Corsi (WorldNetDaily.com) just did a very eye-opening analysis of the problem, where he states:

Amid the U.S. government's acknowledgment of rampant document and benefit fraud, the Federal Reserve is wiring 26,000 Social Security payments every month to Mexicans south of the border.

Officials with the Federal Reserve and Social Security Administration insist payments are not going to illegal aliens but admit they cannot be certain. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has launched a new task force to address the "growing" problem of benefit fraud, including in the Social Security Administration.

I like the official statement that no payments are going to illegal aliens, but they can't be certain?It seems to me that if they were certain, they might HAVE do SOMETHING about it.

I sometimes like to examine the money trail, which is what anyone wanting to determine fraud should follow, and according to the article:

According to the Federal Reserve, in 2005 the amount of funds transferred to Mexico reached more than $30 billion, up from $16.6 billion in 2004. The remittance market to Mexico has experienced double-digit growth in recent years.

Even scarier, was what is termed a totalization agreement with Mexico, that Social Security refused to release until forced to by an advocate group for senior citizens:

As WND previously reported, after refusing to release the document for three and a half years, the Social Security Administration in January finally made public a totalization agreement that "would allow millions of illegal Mexican workers to draw billions of dollars from the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund."

The disclosure was forced by a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the TREA Senior Citizens League, a non-partisan seniors advocacy group.

This hasn't been signed into effect by President Bush, but it could be done without congressional approval.

Dr. Corsi sums up this analysis using factual data from the GAO:

In September 2003, the U.S. General Accounting Office estimated a Social Security totalization agreement with Mexico would cost $78 million in the first year and would grow to $650 billion (in constant 2002 dollars) in 2050.

The GAO admitted even this estimate was low given that the totalization agreement provides an additional incentive for millions more Mexicans to enter and work in the United States.

Dr. Corsi's highly interesting analysis (I highly recommend reading the entire article), here.

So far as the officials, who aren't certain if fraud is occurring, they might want to consider the amount of benefits fraud, recently uncovered in the Katrina and Rita hurricanes. Initially, officials seemed to be in denial (not certain) about how much of it happened there, also. After the GAO did a little digging, they seemed to find quite a bit of it - and rumor has it - they aren't finished finding all of it.

Benefit fraud is a huge problem, and it costs us all in the form of higher taxes. It also takes away from the funds available to pay honest people, who are entitled to receive them.

Here is another post, I wrote about the scope of this problem in a limited area (Southern California):

Los Angeles Grand Jury Calls Child Care Program an ATM for Thieves

The official ICE press release about the government task force looking into this problem can be seen, here.

While a nation mourns, cyber criminals are on the attack

Earlier in the week, I blogged about how cyber criminals (ghouls) would likely use the Virginia Tech disaster to line their pockets.

According to Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service, this prediction is becoming true -- and according to experts -- fake domains are being set up at a faster rate than after the Katrina hurricane.

Even malicious software a.k.a (crimeware) is being circulated via spam e-mails, claiming to have a link to cam phone footage of the incident.

Clicking on this filth can turn your computer into a zombie (normally used in a botnet to send more spam) -- or even log your personal and financial details -- which might be later sold in a carder forum (used for identity theft).

Very interesting and sad commentary on how cyber criminals are on the attack, while a lot of people are in mourning, here.

One place, I recommend to send any of this (trash) you spot on this is to Castlecop's:

Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination Squad (PIRT)

They make sure this garbage gets reported to all the appropriate parties!

The case of an alleged $2 billion government contract fraud/abuse in Iraq/Afghanistan

A company providing services to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has allegedly committed $2 billion in fraud and abuse. Until recently, it was part of Halliburton (spun off after a stock swap)?

Donna Borak, of the AP (courtesy of SignOn San Diego) reports:

U.S. lawmakers on Thursday railed against defense contractor KBR Inc. for a string of fraud and contract abuses on a multibillion-dollar contract that provides food and shelter to U.S. troops in Iraq.

“I think profiteering during wartime is inexcusable,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “We've got a very serious problem. This is the most significant waste, fraud and abuse we have ever seen in this country.”

Here are more specifics as to what occurred, quoting Senator Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the committee, cited several examples of contract abuse, including KBR billing the federal government for millions of meals that were never delivered, overstating labor costs by 51 percent, or $30 million and wasting between $40 million and $113 million by purchasing unnecessary vehicles.

Full story from the AP, here.

The thought of a company being made independent (via a stock swap) and charges of wrongdoing being brought forth, shortly afterwards, bothered me. I decided to look a little further to see what I could find about how this occurred.

I found a site called Halliburton Watch, which did an article entitled, Halliburton bails out of Iraq, KBR and now America. The article (which alleges a lot of other wrongdoing by Halliburton) links to the press release from Halliburton about the KBR spin-off, here.

The stock swap was announced in February. Since it would be hard to skim $2 billion from a $20 billion contract (granted over 5 years) in two months, I decided to see what else I could find.

Going to Senator Levin's site, I found a press release, clearly indicating that the alleged fraudulent activity occurred well before February.

After stating that KBR (formerly Halliburton) should be considered innocent until proven guilty, there seems to be a lot of substance to these charges, researched by government auditors. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and fraud in time of war (if proven), should be dealt with severely!

Not answering a Privacy Notice gives the sender permission to sell your personal/financial information

Recently, I did a post on the difficulties a blogger had after receiving a privacy notice from one of his financial institutions (American Express) and trying to "opt-out" (let them know he didn't want his personal and financial information sold).

In reality, most of the privacy notices, we receive are saying "if you don't respond to me, you are giving us permission to sell your personal and financial information."

These privacy notices (hard to distinguish from junk mail) come about from a law passed in 2001 to protect consumers from having their information sold (just about anywhere). This personal information is often put at risk because it wasn't protected, properly.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has a lot of information on this subject and why the version of the law that was passed isn't as consumer friendly as it sounds. Here is what they had to say:

When this law was debated in Congress, consumer advocates argued unsuccessfully for an "opt-in" provision. This stronger standard would have prevented the sharing or sale of your customer data unless you affirmatively consented. Unfortunately, the opt-in standard did not prevail. That is why we emphasize in Fact Sheet 24 that the burden is on you to protect your financial privacy.

They do have an EXTREMELY informative page on the site, which gives a lot of information on the law and how you can protect your information, here.

They also have another page with a lot of information on how to opt-out from having a lot of different companies sell your personal details.

If you are like me and have a "time challenged" life style, there is one place everyone should opt-out from having their information sold, or the credit bureaus. Credit bureaus, collect and gather all our personal and financial information, and make a LOT of money, selling it.

In a lot of instances, they were the ones, who sold it in the first place.

You can do this, by going, here.

The Federal Trade Commission also offers information to consumers on this subject.

Since most of these laws were passed by Congress prior to data breaches being tracked, perhaps the time is right to make a few changes to the law.

In case any of them are interested, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, has also been maintaining a very telling chronology of why something should be done, here.

As of this post, 153,558,451 voters and potential voters have been compromised, according to the chronology (which freely admits it isn't 100 percent accurate). The stated reason that it is impossible to be accurate is because in many instances, the total number of people compromised couldn't be determined.

It's normally pretty hard to get the data thieves to comment on how much information they got in any particular breach!