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EPIC Sues for FOIA Records

Posted by michael on from the sometimes-they-need-a-little-encouragement dept.

securitas writes: "The Electronic Privacy Information Center is suing the US government over its contracts with companies that are data-mining and profiling citizens' personal information for law enforcement agencies like the FBI, DEA, INS, IRS and ATF. ChoicePoint and Experian '...sell information on [individual] U.S. citizens, including credit information, property records, state motor vehicle records, marriage and divorce data' and international assets. The question that springs to mind is who else has access to these detailed profiles besides the government, now that massively expanded investigative powers are being used following 9/11?"

10 comments

  1. Uh... by rakslice · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This article is a bit misleading. To clarify, the DOJ et al. are being sued for failing to respond to a FOIA request for information relating to their use of information from the corporate sources mentioned.

  2. Even so ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why didn't this make the front page?

  3. Forget the government...google knows more ;) by teambpsi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Try 'ego suffering' on google sometime

    A friend of mine used to brag about how anonymous she was until we found she had been ratted out by classmates.com and picked up by Google

    I know there are a lot of state and local government agencies that are going web-based -- and yes, certainly there are lots of bits of information that are classified as public domain, but the ability for joe-schmoe to assimilate that information in essentially a meta-data source way is kind of freaky

    Especially is joe-schmoe is an ID thief -- and is about to put what little credit rating you have in the toilet by applying and getting credit cards, auto loans, etc

    all from the information we're leaking ;)

    NOTE: I'm not saying that the information shouldn't be available as a matter of public disclosure -- i just think we need to re-evaluate what should be considered private and not.

    The fear of leaking SSN's before is really hardly relevant given the amount of information that can be found based on your phone number

    --

    Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
  4. easy id theft by LordLava · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Forget about needing a phone number. Most of the time you just need a name and some decent social engineering skills to do some identity theft. Credit files are usually outdated, but you'd be amazed what great-aunt mildred will tell the nice collector about you.