Lacking of “Probable Cause” Shuts Down Massive ID Theft Investigation in Colorado
Yesterday, a state judge in Colorado halted a highly controversial identity theft investigation that has implicated more than 1,000 suspected illegal immigrants. The reason? The investigation was unlawful, violated privacy and lacked the probable cause needed when a Weld County Sheriff’s Office investigators seized thousands of tax returns and other documents from a local tax preparer.
The judge comparing the search to a hypothetical police raid on a doctor’s office in search of medical records of drug addicts. Read more about the NY Times coverage here. Also, what do you all think about this? Clearly, this was a privacy violation, which is kind of ironic since ID theft itself is a privacy violation.
This story also brings up our recent post about the U.S. Supreme Court case (Flores-Figueroa v. U.S., 08-108) regarding whether or not undocumented immigrants who use phony Social Security numbers to get work should not be considered identity thieves. The cornerstone of this case is that many illegal immigrants are pulling social security numbers “from thin air” and are only doing it to get legitimate work — not ravage someone’s bank account. What do you all think?
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I personally feel that identity theft should hold several components to be defined as identity theft:
- A person must be found to hold a social security number that is not their own coupled with the legitimate owners full name
- Intent to utilize the identity for the purpose of “impersonating” the original owner should be required to be demonstrated to prove identity theft
- Attempt to resell, license or transfer personal information for the intent of “impersonation” of the legitimate owner.
I’m sure there are other components, but that’s all the time I have to comment
Someone using an SSN other than their own is rather like a drug user – there are those that buy from dealers (e.g. hackers etc) and those that grow their own (e.g pull a number out of thin air). It seems reasonable to impose a different/lessor penalty on users than on dealers, but it doesn’t seem reasonable not to impose any penalty