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Bill Introduced to Congress Would Allow ID Theft Restitution
verybadradio writes with an article at News.com about a bill introduced into Congress that would allow citizens who have been victimized by identity theft to seek repayment for the money and time spent repairing their credit history. The bill was introduced by Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. "Last year, 8.4 million Americans were victims of identity theft, and many were left with a bad credit report, which takes months or years to repair, the lawmakers said ... The bill would also eliminate a requirement that the loss resulting from damage to a victim's computer must exceed $5,000 for prosecution; make it a felony to use spyware or keyloggers to damage 10 or more computers; and expand the definition of cybercrime to include extortion schemes that threaten to damage or access confidential information on a computer."
Face it - the number of times this would actually be useful, let alone enforceable, is going to be less than the number of lottery winners in a given year.
#1 - most of the ID theft going on today is done by illegal immigrants. There are at least 10 million "duplicated" social security numbers on the IRS's rolls right now, in business returns and student loan filings and such. Why are they not going after the employers? Why are they not checking all the illegal mooches stealing money from our kids' schools? Why are they not taking on those who steal billions of dollars using our emergency care facilities as a health care plan?
Because businesses and racist mexshitcan groups like La Raza and LULAC and the mexshitcan gov't spend plenty of money making sure Shrub and various congresscritters get their weekly mexshitcan hooker delivery.
After all, Laura doesn't swallow.
#2 - Even if you do get ahold of the culprit and get a judgement, what assets are you going to take that the gov't hasn't already taken in the criminal case, or that they haven't already paid to their lawyer? The law doesn't give you the "right to restitution", it gives you the right to sue civilly for restitution - meaning you have to get your own lawyer or file paperwork yourself, and go through the civil court system all through the appeals and anything else - to see a dime of your deserved money, all the while paying court filing costs and everything else.
Face it. This is a pointless change to the law up until the rest of the legal system and mess gets fixed.
Gee, what a surprise.