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Technology in Law Enforcement is Unavoidable

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:17:20 +0000

Occasionally I have to take a moment to just vent my opinions about the state of privacy laws, practices, and identity theft. The high-tech approach being taken by law enforcement agencies that is geared toward finding terrorists seems to be bringing in far more information about the average person, though. Whether there are laws on the books that have to be wiggled around, or there are simply no laws covering the specific technology yet, law enforcement agencies are moving forward with implementing technologies that are increasingly invasive with regards to our private lives.

Sentinel Report Says Document Fraud Top Identity Theft Complaint

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:11:12 +0000

The 2012 Consumer Sentinel Network Identity Theft report shows a surprisingly quick growth in financial frauds committed against the government. A good deal of these are probably related to fraudulent tax returns being filed by identity thieves, which has been a growing concern for the past several years, but the category includes things like driver's license fraud as well.

And unfortunately, I'm not aware of any identity theft protection program that would cover a government agency. This presents a whole new problem to contend with.

IRS Needs No Warrant for Your Emails

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:07:35 +0000

CNet News rolled over my feed the other day with a story about how the IRS doesn't need warrants to grab your email, I had to check twice to make sure I wasn't reading The Onion again.

The story is apparently true. It's not clear whether bills that are already in consideration will change that, either.

So not only is it a good idea to keep financial communications out of your email for identity theft reasons, but also if you expect to have any privacy with the government.

Next Generation Identification - Who Needs CISPA?

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:54:25 +0000

EPIC often brings things to my attention that I may have missed. The FBI's Next Generation Identification system fits nicely in that category.

NGI is exactly what the name implies, an exponential growth from the IAFIS (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System) covering way more than just fingerprints. NGI looks to aggregate photos, digital information, criminal histories, warrants, various biometric identifiers, even DNA information all in one database. It's easy to make the argument that CISPA isn't even relevant legislation, because NGI is already being built and its program expanded.

Confusion in New York Over So-Called "Gun Grab"

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:47:35 +0000

When I read about the New York gun confiscation I was mildly interested at first. As a veteran I'm not sure it's possible to "not care" about how the Constitution is treated. But when I learned that it seemed HIPAA-protected information was being used, my interest went way up.

Official stories on the incident are varied, and there seems to be confusion in the media about whether this was a deliberate abuse of authority, a zealous enforcement of New York's new SAFE Act, or a simple administrative mix up. The case will carry on for a while, to be sure, but the initial news seems pretty dismal.

SNOPA - a Ray of Sunshine in the Identity Theft World

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:41:29 +0000

Being an identity theft expert can expose you to some of the worst sides of humanity, and it can get pretty gritty. So I'm always glad to see something like SNOPA come across the newsfeeds.

The bill is geared to stop the unethical business of forcing employees, applicants, and students to provide access to their Facebook page (or YouTube, or MySpace, or what-have-you.) The bill passed the House of Representatives last year, but died in the Senate. This year SNOPA comes back, insisting that the government do something about protecting our online privacy.

My Thoughts on CISPA

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:35:25 +0000

There's been a lot of talk about CISPA the past few months. The bill died last year, but resurfaced this year in a second attempt to coordinate law enforcement information into a national database. Some of the stuff I've read has been positive, some of it not so positive, but everyone seems impassioned over the debate.

But CISPA (or some similar law) will eventually be passed - the infrastructure is already in place, and the FBI's Next Generation Identification system is already actively pulling together just such a database anyway. The real debate isn't whether or not it should be passed, but rather what will the version say that is finally passed.

Business Identity Theft and Banks - No Guarantees

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:30:25 +0000

Business identity theft is a creature all its own. Although it can completely shut down a company, many laws have loopholes that leave business owners out in the cold when it happens to them. More, businesses are finding that banks also have loopholes they can invoke that can make the recovery process difficult.

When your company has to go to court against your bank, there are mixed results. And things can often get tied up in legal definitions and precedents.

The Closest Thing to "IRS Monitoring"

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 14:57:08 +0000

Even when you are an "expert" on privacy and identity theft, you can still learn something new. And of course when I find something as handy as IRS Form 8821 I simply must share it with my readers.

Basically, this is the best way I know of to keep tabs on what is happening at the Internal Revenue Service with your tax money. For the past several years, fraudulent tax filings have bilked the government from (literally) billions of dollars in bogus returns paid out, and the people the money should really be going to end up fighting long up-hill battles with the agency trying to get things straightened out (and get the money they paid out in the first place, incidentally.)

Cell Phone Privacy? Nah, You Don't Need That.

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:01:17 +0000

You might think that your cell phone conversations are private, but this is not the way the Federal government is arguing in court. Last year, a US Justice Department attorney argued in New Orleans that cell phone users have "no reasonable expectation of privacy", and that your cell phone company should be considered a "witness" in any case against you if they have evidence that can prove the state's case.

This is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to start in the argument. But what's most relevant here is not that the argument is being made in court. What concerns me most is the fact that law enforcement agencies are already intercepting our cell phone calls without our knowledge, just in case we might be doing something illegal.