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Personal Privacy: Protect yourself from illegal data brokers

Posted January 18, 2008

“Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies use data brokers to sweep up telephone, bank and other records, bypassing the legal framework set up 30 years ago designed to protect civil liberties. This disclosure occurs on an enormous scale.” — Mark Nestmann.

Mark Nestmann gave his Sovereign Society readers the following information about privacy protection in an increasingly unprivate world. He also listed seven steps you can take to protect your personal information from data brokers. And I thought you’d appreciate the chance to take a look. You can find the article here or read on for more.

by Mark Nestmann

Baltimore – (TFN): Congress is finally waking up to the fact that just about everything Americans want to keep private—bank account details, phone records, credit records, medical records, driving records, bankruptcies, criminal records, civil suits, and property records and much more—is available if you have the money to purchase it.

That was the lesson Congressman Whitfield and the members of his House Energy and Commerce Committee Oversight Subcommittee learned during a series of hearings in June. The hearings featured testimony from data brokers, from whom banks, car dealers, jealous lovers, and even some law enforcement officers have covertly purchased information.

They learned of a multi-million dollar industry in which, by illegally impersonating your target, you can purchase someone’s phone records for US$200, Social Security number for US$60 and the location of a cell phone for US$300.

They also learned how law enforcement—including the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI—uses data broker services to evade legal protections guaranteed in 1970s-era laws prohibiting law enforcement agencies from assembling such records.

These privacy-stealing issues are so grave that data brokers that appeared on Capitol Hill in June couldn’t describe their own involvement for fear of criminal prosecution.

Personal Privacy: Data brokers could be selling your information

Congressman Whitfield’s subcommittee focused on the technique of pretexting, in which a data broker contacts a phone company, bank, mortgage company, utility, or government agency pretending to be someone else. In many cases, the data broker pretends to be the investigative target calling for information about his or her account.

The subcommittee subpoenaed representatives from 11 companies who obtain, market and sell personal data—but every one of them refused to testify about how they earn a living.

One by one, each of them raised their right hand and swore an oath to tell the truth. But when asked whether they sold “personal, non-public information” that had been obtained by lying or impersonating someone, all 11 representatives invoked their constitutional right not to incriminate themselves.

The subcommittee learned how drug dealers use data brokers to obtain information so they can track down and murder undercover narcotics agents and how stalkers use data brokers to find, harass and sometimes even kill their victims. For instance, in 1999, a man obsessed with a high-school classmate tracked down and killed her after using the services of a data broker called Docusearch, Inc. The killer paid Docusearch US$204 to learn Amy Boyer’s birthday, her Social Security number and her employer. Using this information, he ambushed and murdered Boyer as she left work. He then shot himself to death.

And Congress heard first and how numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies use data brokers to sweep up telephone, bank and other records, bypassing the legal framework set up 30 years ago designed to protect civil liberties. This disclosure occurs on an enormous scale. ChoicePoint, one of the largest data broker services, runs between 14,000 and 40,000 searches per month for just one federal agency, the United States Marshall’s Service.

Former data broker James Rapp testified that he could obtain their bank passwords or credit card records with just a few telephone calls. By providing customer service representatives a few pieces of information, he could trick them into revealing this data. After a few inquiries, he said he could obtain their Social Security numbers: the key to stealing someone’s identity.

“There was nowhere you could run or hide that I couldn’t track you down,” Rapp told the subcommittee members. Read on to learn the seven steps to protect your financial privacy.

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