Who Wants To Be An Oregonian?

Anonymous Coward writes "TheOregonian.com is reporting that an identity theft ring was caught with ownership of a set of CD's which contained records on every registered driver (~2.5 million people) in the State of Oregon. With all the calls for identity smart cards, federal databases, and better connections among existing state databases, this story should provide a real warning for the abuse such systems invite...by both criminals and the government itself...the records are actually for sale to 'approved' companies like news organizations and banks. The full story can be read here on yahoo as well."

Comments

The Oregonian has another axe to grind...

[Black Art]

What they are not telling you is that as of a few years ago ANYONE could order a copy of the entire list of licensed drivers in the state of Oregon. All it cost was sending them a 9-track tape and a small fee. ($75, if I remember correctly.)

It is not until copies of the records started to show up on CDs and on the net that things got changed. (Having someone stalked and killed did not stop them from banning the sale of the lists. Having people be able to look up politician's home addresses did. Kinda sorta.)

Now only people who have a "valid need" for the data can buy it.

The reason they did not ban the outright selling of the license lists was that the direct mail people "heavlly objected".

It became very obvious to those people in Oregon that actually paid attention that the state government cared more about financial concerns than they did about actually protecting public safety and/or privacy.

As for the oregonian... They are known to have a very skewed sense of reporting ethics. I would first determine exactly which axe they have to grind before coming to any conclusions about the "facts" of the matter.