Identity theft: one of America’s fastest growing crimes

Computers have greatly facilitated the compilation of information including, unfortunately, information on the contents of another fellow's wallet. That's known as identify theft and it is one of America's fastest-growing crimes.

The Privacy Rights Clearing House estimates that 500,000 people are victimised by the crime each year, costing financial institutions, utilities and merchants more than $5 billion.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission says identity theft accounted for 42 percent of consumer complaints last year.

Federal law-enforcement officials are engaged in a broad crackdown of those involved in the crime which has led to more than 130 arrests.

The arrested persons are being charged with a variety of scams from stealing Social Security numbers to assuming the identity of a corporate executive and exercising nearly 200,000 stock options in the executive's name.

The crackdown is also being carried out as part of the war on terrorism.

The Justice Department is working with the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein (Democrat, California) to make it illegal to possess stolen identities with the intent to use or sell them to someone else. Current law only prohibits the use or sale of the identities.

Source: Yochi J. Dreazen, U.S. Cracks Down on Identity Theft, Arrests Over 130, Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2002.

For text (WSJ subscribers) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1020381352587789480-search,00.htm

For more on U.S. Crime Statistics & Forecasts http://www.ncpa.org/iss/cri/

FMF Policy Bulletin\6 May 2002

Publish date: 14 May 2002
Views: 382

Crime,

The views expressed in the article are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Foundation. This article may be republished without prior consent but with acknowledgement to the author.

Share this article

Help FMF promote the rule of law, personal liberty, and economic freedom become an individual member / donor HERE ... become a corporate member / donor HERE