Maureen Kirk wrote:
Just in the last year, banks, other companies, and agencies have lost
the confidential financial information of over 53 million Americans. We
only know about these security breaches due to a pioneering California
notice law that companies are complying with nationwide.
But the banks and credit card companies are pressuring
Congress to override this and dozens of other state identity theft
reforms with a weak federal law that won't protect privacy and won't
allow states to do so either.
Please take a moment to tell Congress not to prevent
the states from protecting their residents from identity theft. Ask your
friends and family to help out too by forwarding this e-mail to them.
To take action, click on the following link or paste
it into your web browser:
http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=337&id4=ES
Background: Identity theft strikes ten million
Americans annually and costs the economy $50 billion each year,
according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. It's easier to avoid
being victimized and to clear your name when you know you are at risk
and respond quickly to the threat. Since half of all victims never find
out how thieves got their confidential information, California passed a
law requiring any company or agency that loses consumer data to notify
the potential victims of the security breach. Since that strong
California law took effect in 2003, many security breaches have come to
light. This year, banks such as Bank of America and Citigroup, retailers
such as DSW Shoe Warehouse, the credit card processor Cardsystems, the
data broker ChoicePoint and many others reported security breaches. In
all, over 53 million Americans' identities were jeopardized because
those controlling Americans' personal information failed to take care of
it. By requiring notice to consumers, the tough California law is
forcing companies to protect our information well or suffer the public
relations and other harm of telling us that they've failed. That's a
powerful incentive to protect our information better. Now, proposals
ready for the U.S. Senate floor and moving through House committees
would eliminate California's and other strong state notice laws and
replace them with a weak federal notice requirement. Incredibly,
companies that had already lost consumer information would get to decide
whether the risk of identity theft, in their view, was great enough to
warn us. States have also responded this year to another major identity
theft problem: new account fraud. New account fraud is when the identity
thief gets a new credit card, cell phone or other new account in the
victim's name, and is particularly costly to both the victim and
business.
Fortunately, unlike some types of identity theft, new
account fraud can be prevented by the use of a security freeze. A freeze
allows you to freeze access to your credit report, so that when a thief
applies for credit in your name, his or her application is rejected.
California pioneered the security freeze, and other states have
continued to improve on California's work. New Jersey's security freeze
law, which took effect on January 1, is currently the gold standard for
security freezes because it is the cheapest and easiest to use. New
Jersey lawmakers recognized that if using a security freeze is expensive
or difficult, mainstream consumers won't use one. And if a freeze isn't
used, it doesn't stop fraud.
New Jersey's new law and nearly all of the others
granting security breach notice, freeze rights and other identity theft
protections were enacted in response to a highly successful state
PIRG/Consumers Union national campaign to promote our "Model State
Identity Theft" law.
Regrettably, all of these state gains are at risk. The
banks and credit bureaus and others are now demanding that Congress pass
a difficult, expensive security freeze that voids all the state security
freezes. More is at risk than our privacy. The banks are seeking not
only to overturn these strong privacy laws, but also to limit the
states' ability to protect us in the future. Please take a moment to
tell Congress not to prevent the states from protecting their residents
from identity theft. Ask your friends and family to help out too by
forwarding this e-mail to them. To take action, click on the following
link or paste it into your web browser:
http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=337&id4=ES To learn more about
security freezes and the New Jersey law, visit NJPIRG at
http://www.njpirg.org/ To learn
more about state PIRG identity theft solutions and to view the model
law, visit
http://www.pirg.org/consumer/credit
Sincerely,
Maureen Kirk OSPIRG Executive Director
MaureenK@ospirg.org
http://www.OSPIRG.org
P.S. Thanks again for your support. Please feel free
to share this e-mail with your family and friends.
http://uspirg.org/uspirg.asp?id=337&id3=USPIRG&id4=ES&