Identity Theft

In this day and age of online bill paying and other electronic transactions, one might be inclined to look to the Internet as the weakest link in protecting your "identity." But two stories that I read today prove that you are pretty much not safe from identity theft even if you personally guard your information or you are forced to use too much sensitive information in your daily life.

The first story comes from New York where CitiFinancial has announced that they have lost 3.9 million customers' personal information including Social Security numbers and payment histories. The information was contained on data tapes that were picked up by UPS last month and have disappeared in transit to a credit reporting company. It's bad enough that UPS lost such an important package but what in the hell was such sensitive material being shipped by UPS for?!? It would seem like this would be the type of material that would be hand carried in a briefcase handcuffed to the arm of a man in a black suit with training in martial arts and a concealed handgun. Am I wrong?

The second story is very disturbing indeed. A community college professor in Winter Haven, FL has been charged with using some of his students names and Social Security numbers to get credit cards for department stores. This has been on the verge of happening for a long time. I remember when I was in college, there was a lot of debate of the use of Social Security numbers as a method for identification of students. The risk is that these numbers were posted in public places so that students could confidentially check their grades. But the problem is that it only takes a few unscrupulous professors or other students to fraudulently acquire numerous credit cards.

I have heard stories of people who have been victims of identity theft and their lives have been made very difficult by fraud. They have had trouble getting future credit to buy a home, car or even business loan. For all the talk and concern with protecting personal information, these two stories are examples of very preventable occurrences.

I myself have been in a similar situation. About a year ago, I received a letter from the company I used to work for stating that one of their servers had been stolen. The server contained personal information of a large number of employees including Social Security numbers. My former employer was gracious enough to pay for a credit check for all employees but that doesn't excuse the fact that someone was able to steal a server from their corporate offices!

I went ahead with my credit check and was very disturbed to find numerous identity errors in my report! My father and I have the same name and that always caused confusion when I was growing up. He and I would open each others mail inadvertently, but what I saw on my credit report was both startling and frustrating. There were several entries included on the report for credit cards that were in my father's name. Furthermore, there were listings for addresses that I had never lived at but my father had. But the information that infuriated me the most was the listings of OTHER SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS!!!!! One of the other numbers was my father's number and I have no idea to whom the other belonged. This was on my official credit report from one of the three national credit monitoring agencies! If they can't keep identities straight, who can we trust?!?

Sadly I think that things are going to get worse until they get better. It's already too easy for malicious people to steal identities, and the companies that should be helping are not doing a very good job right now. I for one am going to keep shredding those pre-approval credit card applications and hope for the best.

There's No Place Like Home

I just found out tonight that my home state of Louisiana is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, south Louisiana is sinking at a rate of 5 feet per century so in the future, my parent's house will be either ocean front property or will be in the ocean. For all my friends who have told me they want to visit Lafayette, LA and have me show them around, you only have about 95 years to get it done so set your appointments soon!

Military Responsibility

Late Friday afternoon, the Pentagon released a report cataloging several confirmed instances of desecrations to the Koran that occurred at Guantanamo Bay. Some of the instances include copies of the book being stepped on, kicked, obscenities being written on them and, worst of all, being splashed with urine.

On March 25, a detainee complained to guards that "urine came through an air vent" and splashed on him and his Quran. A guard admitted he was at fault, but a report released Friday evening offering new details about Quran mishandling incidents did not make clear whether the guard intended the result.

In the March incident, as described in the report, the guard had left his observation post to go outside to urinate. The wind blew his urine through an air vent into the cell block. The guard's supervisor reprimanded him and assigned him to gate guard duty, where he had no contact with detainees, for the rest of his assignment at Guantanamo Bay.

So what, the guards don't have bathrooms at the prison? That's a pretty flimsy excuse. I don't like it any more than Newsweek printing unconfirmed reports of a copy of the Koran being flushed down the toilet.

Accidents happen and people make mistakes, but coming up with a convoluted excuse for how urine got on a Koran is pretty pathetic. Maybe I'm just naive and have too much faith in people doing the right thing all the time.

I think that the majority of people in the military go in for a good reason, but there is a small group of people that enters the military to have power. It's quite sad that they would then go on to perpetrate an action they knew was wrong and make up a convoluted excuse for how it was an accident. This is the kind of crap that makes people around the world distrust America and question the motives of the US military.

Furthermore, the fact that the Pentagon waited until after the evening news on Friday to release this report is a pretty sad display. That's a pretty immature way to handle the news. It's like when you were a kid and waiting until your parents were out of town to tell them you did something wrong. It's that childish hope that the extra time will let their anger and the punishment be diminished by the time they got back to discipline you. That's a pretty pathetic strategy for the US military to engage in. Maybe I just shouldn't have such high expectations of the military, but then why shouldn't I?

My real concern is that these newest reports will set off more riots in the Middle East. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

The European Union

Today, the Netherlands proved that the European Union as some would like it to exist, is impossible.

I remember hearing about predictions for the Union in the late 1980s and thought that it would very interesting if only from a historical point. The prediction I saw on a television show about futurists and economists actually showed a map of the "United States of Europe." In high school, I was fortunate enough to have a very thorough education of Western Civilization and European history. In college I was able to take a study abroad trip to France and experience French and other European cultures first hand. What I learned then and have been predicting ever since is that a united Europe is nearly impossible in this day and age.

The overriding reason is that ever country in Europe has far too much nationalistic identity to accept a confederacy of nations as states. A majority of Europeans want the world to look to them as the dominant power in the world, but they are really only envisioning their country as that power, not a united Europe. There is nothing wrong with nationalism, but it is an impediment when it comes to agreeing to surrender some of your identity and ability to create wealth for yourself.

I last visited France in 1998, a few years before the conversion of money to the Euro. I felt, and still feel, that the conversion would make travel very convenient because I was always having to change money whenever I took a weekend trip to another country. One moment struck me as very telling of the future of unification. I was on a train from Munich to Paris when I decided to make a stop in the dining car for some dinner. I had some German Marks left over so I wanted to use them before I returned to France. I was trying to figure out what each coin was and apparently I slightly mispronounced the word "Mark." I know this because the waiter told me so in a very condescending manner. I thought to myself, "How is the Euro going to work here? People are so protective of their own identity that they will treat a paying customer like this."

Soon I came to realize that if they feel this way about their currency, how will a majority of the populations agree on anything? Perhaps that thought was a bit extreme but it appears that the general populations of some of the member countries don't support the plans quite as much as the politicians. I do not think that the European Union is doomed, but some concessions will have to be made that will most likely take the power out of the EU and at that point, a constitution would be rendered almost useless.

Star Wars

I finally saw Revenge of the Sith this past weekend and was left with a feeling of slight disappointment to go along with the "closure" of the story coming full circle. I guess I was just hoping to be able to relive the excitement that I had felt when watching the original trilogy. But sadly it was only nostalgia and nothing more. I mean this wasn't a bad movie, but I have seen quite a few headlines and reviews that proclaim this film the best of the series. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a lot that is wrong with the movie.

I enjoyed parts of it but I found that at times, it was excruciatingly slow and tedious. Too much time was spent trying to show Anakin's turn to the "darkside" but it was hampered by the constraints of the movie. It just felt like he was turned pretty darn easily after all that we were lead to believe. It seemed a little forced to me in order to get to the conclusion that we all knew was inevitable.

I actually left the theater feeling like I had enjoyed this chapter less than the last. I remember being very excited by the action in Attack of the Clones but there was no real suspense in this film. I guess that is the trouble with prequels. To it's credit, Revenge of the Sith was better than The Phantom Menace but that really isn't saying a lot.

So now the Star Wars chapter of our lives is over. I for one am glad to see it end. There was a time that I thought I'd never even think such a thing, but George Lucas did so many things with the new trilogy that sacrificed the heart and soul of the original story that I almost wish the prequels were never made. But hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy to criticize after the fact.

For a very funny review of the movie (beware of spoilers) check out Maddox's opinion.