Slashdot Mirror
Having Your ID Stolen Leads to Job Loss, Prosecution
ConfusedVorlon writes "The BBC reports on the sad case of Simon Bunce. Mr. Bunce had his identity stolen, and credit cards were made to capitalize on the theft. Some of those cards were used at sites offering child pornography, and as a result Mr. Bunce was swept up in Operation Ore. The poor man was prosecuted for his 'crime', and was eventually found innocent, but in the meantime he lost his job. It took him six months to find another at a quarter of the salary. 'The police's computer technicians take several months to examine [his computers and records], and Mr Bunce could not afford to wait to repair the damage done to his reputation. "I knew there'd been a fundamental mistake made and so I had to investigate it." Recent surveys suggest that as many as one in four Britons have been affected by it. In 2007 more than 185,000 cases of identity theft were identified by Cifas, the UK's fraud prevention service, an increase of almost 8% on 2006.'"
From the Democratic Underground:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3100544
"You're fired!"
Those are the words that millions of Americans could hear if Congress passes the SAVE Act.
The SAVE Act would require every employer in the U.S. to use so-called "electronic employment verification," cross-checking all current and potential employees' citizenship status against databases that the government itself knows are filled with errors and inaccuracies.
And what if the Social Security Administration (SSA) or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) get it wrong and can't verify a person's citizenship or right to work using their buggy database? Tough luck. That person is out of a job, with no right to appeal. And you don't even need to have your identity stolen to be so unlucky.
Does this idea bother you?
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
There was a guy running for a local office a few years ago in Oregon. On his web site, under hobbies, he listed "watching boys play". MY GOD he got hammered left and right.. He meant it coming from the fact that he coached 3 kids sports, but everyone assumed (there's that word)he was a pedo. Couldn't have been a more stand up guy, coach, active in church, always kept his word, etc.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
> First off, in UK there is no presumption of innocence.
"Innocent until proven guilty" isn't even found in the US Constitution, it's simply assumed as a part of the Common Law, otherwise known as English Common Law. It is, however, explicitly in the EU Constitution.
But of course, the word "children" has been the magic word to dispel it.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
The same thing happened to a guy here : http://www.krem.com/topstories/stories/krem2_040208_chismcomputers.26cb2f44.html although they've yet to drag him through the courts.
A little background. Landslide was the company that sold the AVS and KEYZ age verification codes for access to adult sites. Despite the fact that they had thousands of sites, and their lawyers assured them they were not responsible for content, the government shut them down and prosecuted them over a couple of dodgy offshore sites, claiming the owners were "madams of a child porn bordello," and sent them to prison for life.
Not content with this, they then took Landslide's entire customer list, sorted it by country, and sent it out to foreign law enforcement organizations demanding they raid everyone on it. They couldn't prove anyone on it had even visited an alleged child porn site, or what they had looked at if they did, but they could use the list for "probable cause" to search the victims computers, and if they found illegal porn while doing do, they could prosecute them for that.
Most countries ignored the US demands, except for those conducting their own child abuse moral panics like the UK. The UK ran with the list, and called its version "Operation Ore."
So they ran around raiding everyone in the UK who had purchased an age verification code from Landslide, and managed to find porn on a few computers, and sometimes were able to terrorize people on the list into making incriminating admissions. Of course, everyone so targeted was featured in the UK press as "a person who had paid for access to child porn."
The problem here is not identity theft. The problem here is a fishing expedition into the lives of mostly innocent people based on something which no reasonable person would consider probable cause.
My reading of the story may be wrong, but I can't find anywhere in it where it says that he was prosecuted. Perhaps this is a transatlantic definition problem. Here in the UK, there are basically four stages to a criminal prosecution (yes, I have simplified).
- Arrest: The police suspect that you might have committed a crime.
- Charging: The police decide that their suspicions were correct and ask for the case to go to trial.
- Prosecution: The Crown Prosecution Service (a body independent from the police) decide that the case is likely to succeed and will be in the public interest. They prepare the prosecution case and go to the courts.
- Conviction or aquital: A court decided whether or not the defendant is guilty and if guilty imposes a penalty.
So far as I can tell, in this case Mr Bunce only passed through the first stage. The police eventually decided that he had not committed a crime and therefore didn't charge him. Now, that is not to minimise his suffering. He has clearly been very badly treated and he hope he succeeds with legal action against not only the web site, but also the police and his ex-employers. I should also point out that here in the UK police state, he will have had his finger prints and DNA taken and that these will now be retained forever (even after his death) even thought the police accept that he did nothing wrong.
I don't know how it works in the UK, but in the USA, most companies practice "at will" employment. Here, you have little (if any) recourse for being fired, excepting special cases related to race, sex, or disability.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I don't know how it works in the UK, but in the USA, most companies practice "at will" employment. Here, you have little (if any) recourse for being fired, excepting special cases related to race, sex, or disability.
That's the theory. But in practice... well, let me quote the attorney who taught the class I took on "the laws involved in hiring":
"California is an at-will state. That means the employer and employee can terminate employment at any time without cause, barring a few exceptions. In practice, those exceptions make up about 90% of the rule."
Most macho gun nuts I know would probably wet themselves in an actual firefight and I'm guessing you're no exception. What odds? The odds that having a gun in your house increases your chances of getting shot? That's obviously a load of crap, and if you bother to check, you'll find that it's wholly unsupported. Most cops are crap shots - your average gun enthusiast is a better shot, especially when the average cop only shoots twice a year to qualify.
Most people period will freeze up when being shot at. Cops aren't likely to be any different.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Unfortunately, people automatically assume the worst when a man wants to work with kids; I was strongly advised by my teachers and guidance counsellors to change my mind. I did.
Looking back on it I'm still somewhat sad about it, but at the same time I'm glad about it to. With the current climate I would have lived in constant fear of the kid who got a bad grade, couldn't take it, and them making a false accusation to get back at me. Guilty first, innocent later.
Can you even back up your claim that you are more likely to get shot with your own gun?
And then you claim that police are highly trained!
HAhahahaha!
Just google "how often do police have to qualify" and you will get this as the first link: http://forums.officer.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-9835.html
Reading it you will find out that some police have to qualify ONCE a year, if that. And the qualification is to hit a man sized target at 10 feet. Some departments don't even provide funds for the officers to train and qualify and they must do it on their own time and money
Certainly there are police departments where the standards are much higher. But your erroneous statement of "getting shot with your own gun" is a complete fabrication.
He was not "prosecuted for his 'crime', and was eventually found innocent". "Prosecuted" implies there was a trial. He was arrested, and later the charges were dropped.
He shouldn't have been arrested either, given how slight the evidence against him was. A search was justified, but no more.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Your wish is my command.
A gun in your home is 22 times more likely to kill a member of your family than an intruder.
Quadruple piles of arse in this particular thread. The UK government wrote the European Convention of Human Rights in the late 1940s and all Council of Europe states (*not* EU states) adopted it. It has bound British law ever since, but prior to the Human Rights Act in 1998, UK citizens had to go to Strasbourg to fight a case. That's no longer true.
And guess what clause 2 of article 6 says?
"Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law."