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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.'"
no one will care, because thats acceptable to protect the children.
All ongoing posts will be the back and forth on this concept.
How society prosecutes child pornography... like a lynch mob: guilty until proven innocent and no recompense for those poor souls that did not deserve to be labeled and treated like some monster.
There is way too much leniency given to law enforcement in the process of stopping child pornography. WAY TOO MUCH.
I'm not saying that child pornography is good or even just 'not bad'... I'm saying that lynch mob mentality in prosecuting anyone suspected of it is absolutely the wrong thing to do.
Sex crime laws and their enforcement (at least in the US) are criminal in themselves. They are, at best, mostly subjective in nature and enforced with the tact of a nuclear weapon.
Victims are stigmatized, penalized, emotionally brutalized, and then forever branded as someone that people can't trust.
Laws are good to have. Not all laws are good laws. A law set by a community that cannot be amended or repealed is not a law, it's a dogma. These laws need some changes, big ones.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
That's what happens when you get involved in a witch hunt, which is exactly what this bullshit is. Anyone who calls it anything else is a closet pedophile. Why else do they fight so hard "to protect the children"? They mean, to protect the children from hypocrite lying shitheads like themselves.
Or Simon Buttle?
with few exceptions, 'justice' leans in particular ways. Where children and child support are concerned, it's children first and anything else is a secondary consideration such as whether or not a man is the ACTUAL father of the children.
In a case such as this, at least in the US, a person might at least be able to sue the government for malicious prosecution and collect damages specifying that since the accusation ruined his life, that the government should therefore pay for it for a long, long time.
I have personally experienced what an accusation can do to one's employability... not even a conviction, just an arrest or an accusation. Is this an acceptable part of the justice system? I don't think so. While it's important to 'care for the victims' it's EQUALLY important to protect the rights of the accused until there is enough evidence to prove something is wrong.
In the particular case under discussion, they should never have arrested him based on credit card transactions. That is not proof of identity or of anything other than a transaction was made. And if no other evidence of a crime was present, the most they should have done is attempt to verify whether or not it was actually he that made the transaction or someone else. They could do much of that without even bothering the poor guy.
The reality is that this man is a victim of a crime... not necessarily a crime that is actually described in law, but still a violation of his life. I can't see that as acceptable. I think England is one of the last places I'd want to live... but then so is the U.S... and that's where I am now.
People these days can't even bother to wait for all the votes to be counted before having the new leader of their country announced, why in the world would they wait for someone to be found guilty before treating them as such?
This man's problems were caused not by ID theft, but by suspicion of crime. It would be no different if someone seeking revenge reported him on an "anonymous tipline".
The real problem, as I see it, is that even though one may legally be innocent until proven guilty, when it comes to dealing with the public at large, the accused is presumed guilty until proven innocent, and sometimes even afterward.
Mr. Bruce's problems were caused by the society in which he lives, not the ID theft.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
If you can solve the "identity theft" problem, you won't have to worry about this in the future. Whether kiddie porn is involved or not.
And we've been over, often enough, the various means of solving "identity theft". The problem is that the burden is on the victim, not the bank issuing the cards. Despite the bank having far more information and resources than the victim.
If we would just validate the transaction instead of the "identity" of the purchaser, we'd be able to eliminate this fraud.
And it's not like it's far-fetched to think that the people purchasing child porn might use stolen or misappropriated credit cards to do so...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I think other posters have missed the point a bit by focusing on the fact that this case was about child pornography. Yes, that's a particularly egregiously aggressively policed crime, but it's hardly the only time cops will use credit cards to track who they think committed a crime. (Nominal) ownership of the credit card used should *never* be considered sufficient evidence to charge someone with *any* crime. It's probable cause to investigate, sure, but not to charge. It's only about one step more reasonable than charging someone because their real name matched the screen name used.
WTF? One in four? are you insane? that would be 15 million people. Does that really seem likely? Anecdotally I know substantialy more than four people and *none* of them have had their identity stolen. They are still the same people I used to know (although with ID theft the way it is who can tell?).
OK, Cifas (whoever they are) pursued 185k cases last year. There are 65M people in the uk. 65,000,000 - 185,000 = 65,000,000 (rounded up). That is not 25%, more like 0.025%. If they can only identify 0.1% of the fraud what are they actually doing? I know the gubment wastes money, but that is crazy.
He had nothing to hide because he was innocent, so everything worked out in the end, right?
I've seen the errors and crap that go into a very small database, holding records on a few thousand people. I would be scared to death to entrust anything to a much larger one. The thing that really scares me is the "private" databases. I can do a FOIA request against the federal databases to make sure my info is correct, I can get a copy of my credit report if I am denied credit because of my report, but what the hell recourse do I have if I am denied employment because the HR person ran me through a "private screening database" and saw that I (erronously) had a bad/criminal record? When is the last time an employer told you why you weren't getting hired? How would you know who to contact to ensure it was accurate?
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
This is a case of fraud, not theft. This man's identity was not "stolen," but used fraudulently in an attempt to gain illegitimate access to goods and services under the guise of someone else. Using words like "identity theft" is no better than the RIAA calling copyright infringement "theft."
And that's why it's never wise to pay for porn.
--why?
Child pornography is one of a few accusations where a person is presumed guilty until proven innocent... and even after he's proven innocent.
Your tax dollars hard at work... so when they demand or you hear "pay your fair share" what are you paying for, exactly. Billions are spent on policing, and finding new "prevention" methods in the criminal arena, while in medicine they are treating symptoms rather than causes. Strange how in each field, the wrong approach is taken.
By all accounts I've read (and some old timers I've talked to) each generation expects more from the governments, pays far more and gets far less. The same is true of medicine. More toxins find their way into our food, our entertainment and such. I have old timer friends who used to be coke heads in the 50's. They tell me that clean coke (not crack and the like) made people relaxed, not hostile and seeking to kill for another fix. Strange? I get similar stories from potheads I've known in college. Strange that the police would punish nonviolent criminals, while violent rapists and murderers get acquitted? And not even acquitted on technicalities, but on mere "good behavior" or "time served" or more precisely "to make room in prison for tax cheats".
Tax cheats?? Wtf are we getting for our "fair share" that we have been paying? Highways? There's fucking potholes in DC! Nation's capital has goddamn potholes!! I've seen private toll roads with NO POTHOLES!! I've seen private estates and gated neighborhoods, "End Municipal Maintenance Here" read the sign. Far better roads, lower crime, and my friends living there all owned weapons, and didn't ever call the cops. They had armed security, well paid armed security at the neighborhood gates. Perhaps until people stop demanding things of gods and governments, those gods and governments will have no reason to demand things of their ignorant worshipers.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Oh great, let's all move into gated communities, and do balkanization from the ground up!
Dude, Snow Crash was a novel, not a manual.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Actually I had such a dispute. Damaged my credit pretty badly at the time. I still refused to pay. To make a long story short, a man's word is not worth gold anymore, a man's word is worth not a penny, while other men's words about that man are worth more than gold.
Makes you wonder why so few people are responsible nowadays... perhaps because all they have to do is be robots at work, and vege at night. Had they had to live up to what it was they said, life might be a bit different... for all of us.
The question that must be asked is... "what makes a bunch of bankers and liars for a living, make their word more worthwhile in people's eyes than the word of a man who actually produces something tangible and sells it for a living and therefore has at least some chance that he isn't just a liar for a living?"
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
morons.
yea it is. im no psychopath, badass wannabee or anything. i just recognize stellar shit when i see it.
this 'child pornography' scare has been made into a modern day witch hunt. its totally stupid and idiotic. no less than a medieval witch hunt - you just need to be accused by someone to be prosecuted. try it. just accuse someone, and watch their computers getting confiscated. their sensitive data, passwords, everything passing through some obscure personas in local police department.
mankind really lacking in wisdom. higher the level of disgust/horror a crime induces, the higher they are regarding that crime.
hundreds of thousands of people around the world are dying every year due to various atrocity related events, genocides, strifes, terrorism, repression, disease, hunger. but our current overly politically correct public is more appalled at the wake of pathetically negligible percentage of child pornography cases than hundreds of thousands of people dying. what ? when a child grows up, s/he is not important anymore ? s/he dying due to hunger whilst the world has the means to aid them is not something more horrible than a child pornography case ? if you just read this last sentence, and thought that child pornography is a more horrible and bigger crime, even if a second, you need to really straighten up yourself and get smart - because you yourself are judging the seriousness of a crime by the horror it induces, not its real merit. right to life is the foremost right on the face of the earth.
Read radical news here
Maybe they'd wait if, I dunno, we didn't advertise the details of suspects publicly on the basis of some random allegation that has yet to be proven in court?
Getting back to this specific case, I'm not sure what's more disturbing:
And on an unrelated note, what gives with the weird styling on Slashdot since earlier this evening? Loads of HTML formatting, such as the list above, is completely broken. :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Do you have any idea how much tragedy has been preceded by your kind of posturing bluster?
It keeps getting worse in this respect in the US.....they'll confiscate most any and ALL property if you're suspected of a number of crimes. It started out as a way to battle the 'drug lords'...but, now, if they catch you with a roach, they'll impound your car and whatever else they think is connected to your drug money. Now.this spills over into many more areas. Suspected of Child Pron? You go to jail,do not pass go...do not collect $200. And your assets and computers are all seized. IF you ever can get them back.....you're already fucked.
Again...shows that an idea given to law enforcement WILL be used in new and creative ways never intended in the future...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is just ridiculous. No, plain stupid. Agree, not more than still using feet and pound for creating machines.
Why not make an encrypted 6 digits PIN code?
This is an example as the USA spreads its ineffective obsolete technology around the globe using soft power: advertising, marketing, etc.
What percentage of all men are rapists and pedofiles? We don't have to deal with it because the vast majority of men are not, and never will be. Do you also think that we should treat all muslims as terrorists, all black people as poor second class citizens, all Mexicans and gang members and drug runners?
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
A big lawsuit against the UK government, most probable carried to the EU level, not only will result in a big compensation (for psychological damages), but also make agencies to be more careful.
Do you have any idea how much tragedy has been preceded by the idea that fighting back is wrong, that the law will deal with it and that the state should have a monopoly on violence?
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
which is totally what she said
But if you consider the poster's experience, the librarian appears to think that "most men are pedophiles and rapists", a crucial difference which makes her behaviour unacceptable.