Identity theft

“ On top of that, §1028A’s title is not just “identity theft,” but “Aggravated identity theft.” Typically, “ [a] n ‘aggravated’ offense is one ‘made worse or more serious by circumstances such as violence, the presence of a deadly weapon, or the intent to commit another crime.’ ” Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, 560 U. S. 563, 574 (2010) (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 75 (9th ed. 2009) ) . This suggests that Congress had in mind a particularly serious form of identity theft. Yet the Government’s reading “would apply an ‘aggravated’ ... label” to all manner of everyday overbilling offenses. ”

“ If this parallel were not enough, §1028A (a) (1) ’s title indicates that the type of theft its verbs connote is identity theft specifically.
Because “transfer” and “possess” channel ordinary identity theft, noscitur a sociis indicates that “uses” should be read in a similar manner to its companions. See McDonnell, 579 U. S., at 568–569. “Uses” is quite amenable to such a reading, and not just because of its indeterminacy. As explained above, “using” another person’s means of identification to deceive or defraud is a common feature of identity theft. ”

“ This helps explain why the examples resulting from the Government’s theory do not sound like identity theft. If a lawyer rounds up her hours from 2.9 to 3 and bills her client using his name, the name itself is not specifically a source of fraud; it only plays an ancillary role in the billing process. The same is true for the waiter who substitutes one cut of meat for another ”

“ One of the most harmful abuses of personal information is identity theft. This occurs when someone steals a Social Security number, a birth date, or some other important piece of personal information to open new, fraudulent charge accounts, to order merchandise, or to borrow money. Victims usually find out about such frauds when collection agencies pursue them for payment on these illegally created accounts, or they are denied credit because of unpaid debts accrued by identity thieves. ”

“ As an increasing number of transactions and activities occur online, the safety of vital consumer information is increasingly at risk. The American people deserve freedom from unscrupulous actors who perpetrate identity theft, abuse personal information, or engage in fraud. ”

“ It is the policy of the United States to use Federal resources effectively to deter, prevent, detect, investigate, proceed against, and prosecute unlawful use by persons of the identifying information of other persons, including through: (a) increased aggressive law enforcement actions designed to prevent, investigate, and prosecute identity theft crimes, recover the proceeds of such crimes, and ensure just and effective punishment of those who perpetrate identity theft ”

“ The law recognizes harassment as a civil rights issue You know, the idea that we would bring law to bear against threats—privacy invasions like the spreading of social security numbers, that can aid and abet identity theft, defamation—the idea that we would bring law to bear against it was...I was told I was going to break the internet, right? ”

“ This Task Force is implementing a comprehensive strategy to prevent identity theft, prosecute those who commit fraud, and help victims. Through these and other efforts, we are helping to ensure that consumers have the tools they need to secure their personal information, monitor their financial accounts, maintain their privacy, and make responsible decisions to guard against fraud. ”

“ The Fifth Circuit found that he did, based on a reading of the statute that covers defendants who fraudulently inflate the price of a service or good they actually provided. On that sweeping reading, as long as a billing or payment method employs another person’s name or other identifying information, that is enough. A lawyer who rounds up her hours from 2.9 to 3 and bills her client electronically has committed aggravated identity theft. ”

“ I call upon Government officials, industry leaders, and consumer advocates to provide citizens with information about how they can prevent fraud and identity theft, and I encourage all citizens to be responsible consumers and take an active role in protecting their personal information. ”

“ We are acting to protect citizens from these crimes and the grief and problems they cause. During the last 2 years, I have signed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, which makes it easier for consumers to detect and protect themselves from fraud, and the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, which strengthens the penalties for identity theft. ”

“ Digital users and consumers shall be protected from identity theft, phishing, other online scams, through essential systems and safeguards, such as cybersecurity, data privacy, consumer complaint mechanisms, and financial literacy campaigns. ”

“ Through the defendants’ efforts, LIBERTY RESERVE has emerged as one of the principal means by which cyber-criminals around the world distribute, store, and launder the proceeds of their illegal activity. Indeed, LIBERTY RESERVE has become a financial hub of the cyber-crime world, facilitating a broad range of online criminal activity, including credit card fraud identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, and narcotics trafficking. ”

“ In the last few years, Russian organized crime has evolved to incorporate computer fraud, identity theft, piracy of software and digital media and other related offenses. The Russian mafia employs programmers and graduates of computer sciences. The British Daily Express reported in September that - probably Russian - hackers broke into Microsoft's computer network and absconded with invaluable source codes. ”

“ While it is quite possible that dishonest transactions, and even theft, may take place by telephone and the voices of the perpetrators may be unmistakable between distant cities, it is more likely that the phonographic registration of speech or other sound by means of a gramophone should become a matter of medico-legal investigation and a possible means that may lend great assistance in establishing personal identity. ”

“ It is very true that bills of attainder have been passed against persons by some description, when their names were unknown. But in such cases the law leaves nothing to be done to render its operation effectual, but to identify those persons. Their guilt, its nature, and its punishment are fixed by the statute, and only their personal identity remains to be made out. ”

“ Whether an informer is motivated by good citizenship, promise of leniency or prospect of pecuniary reward, he will usually condition his cooperation on an assurance of anonymity-to protect himself and his family from harm, to preclude adverse social reactions and to avoid the risk of defamation or malicious prosecution actions against him. The government also has an interest in nondisclosure of the identity of its informers. Law enforcement officers often depend upon professional informers to furnish them with a flow of information about criminal activities. ”

“ Let us consider fraud. There again the precautions are so rigid that many people pronounce the forms a nuisance. I confess that I do not. I regard them as a means of protecting my own property and I cheerfully sign my name and give my password, which the manager compares with his record-book before he releases the first lock of my safe. The signature is burned before my eyes in a sort of crucible there, the password is of my own choosing and is written only in a book that no one but the manager ever sees, and my key is the sole one in existence. ”

“ Many of the bank accounts purchased by PINEDO over the internet were created using stolen identities of U.S. persons. Although PINEDO was not directly involved in the registration of these accounts using stolen identities, he willfully and intentionally avoided learning about the use of stolen identities.
3. Company 1 required users to submit bank account numbers as a means of verifying a user's identity. To circumvent this requirement, certain users (hereinafter "Users") registered for Company 1's online services with bank account numbers in the names of other people. ”

“ The principle which protects personal writings and all other personal productions, not against theft and physical appropriation, but against publication in any form, is in reality not the principle of private property, but that of an inviolate personality. ”

“ Encourages Member States to share, in accordance with their domestic laws and practices, with the private sector information in their national databases related to fraudulent, counterfeit, stolen, and lost identity or travel documents pertaining to their own jurisdictions, and, if a listed party is found to be using a false identity including to secure credit or fraudulent travel documents, to provide the Committee with information in this regard ”

“ At §139 of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, it was stated that the blanket ban imposed could not be said to be necessary, in a democratic society, for public safety within the meaning of Arts 8 and 9 of the Convention when “the objective alluded to by the Government could be attained by a mere obligation to show their face and to identify themselves where a risk for the safety of persons and property has been established, or where particular circumstances entail a suspicion of identity fraud”. ”

“ Additionally, in many countries the traditional laws of theft also require that the thing that is taken constitute property. However, legislators and the judiciary in many of these countries are reluctant to ascribe a property status to information, even confidential information. The issue of misappropriation of information raises a number of broader legal, social and economic issues. The conflict of interest between the free flow of information and the right to confidentiality must be taken into account, as must be the economic interests in certain kinds of information. ”

“ Persons afflicted with General Paralysis frequently steal, in the belief that everything they see belongs to them, or because they are incapable of understanding the meaning of property. If accused of theft, they deny their guilt or assert that the stolen articles have been hidden on their persons by others. ”

“ It punishes theft as an abnormal incident only occurring when, through evil motives, one free citizen acquires the property of another without his knowledge and against his will. It punishes fraud as another abnormal incident in which, from evil motives, one free citizen induces another to part with his property upon false representations. ”

“ Assuming that the messages could be introduced in evidence, we then have a question of identity. The fragmentary nature of the messages themselves, the assumptions made by the cryptographers in breaking the messages, and the questionable interpretations and translations involved, plus the extensive use of cover names for persons and places, make the problem of positive identification extremely difficult. ”

“ And this just brings up the point I want to make—​is it not just possible—​is it not rather a serious supposition when my client and our criminal procedure is considered—​is it not just possible that something like colour blindness affects this matter of identification—​that there are a host of persons whose evidence upon any question of identity, though perfectly honest, are worthy of very little trust? That men upon this as upon most other matters are guilty of an uncommon carelessness like that which makes testimony about figured statements so often valueless. ”

“ Given that identity crimes, including credit, debit, and other payment card fraud, continue to be a risk to U.S. economic activity, and given the economic consequences of data breaches, the United States must take further action to enhance the security of data in the financial marketplace. ”

“ We hold that, in the absence of contract, fraud, or estoppel, any man may use his own name, in all legitimate ways, and as the whole or a part of a corporate name. And, in our view, defendant's name and trademark were not intended or likely to deceive, and there was nothing of substance shown in defendant's conduct in their use constituting unfair competition, or calling for the imposition of restrictions lest actionable injury might result, as may confessedly be done in a proper case. ”

“ I t is hardly necessary to say that an ordinary surname cannot be appropriated as a trade-mark by any one person as against others of the same name, who are using it for a legitimate purpose; although cases are not wanting of injunctions issued to restrain the use even of one's own name where a fraud upon another is manifestly intended, or where he has assigned or parted with his right to use it. ”

“ She looked to the exercise of the franchise as the only means of securing this protection, and when she saw the right to it being stolen openly and the theft acknowledged and the court defied to do its worst by the guilty themselves, no wonder her confidence of the manhood in men was seriously shocked. ”

“ But a false name—even in jest, my dear—is an offence against society generally, and hurts and offends every one. And in addition it is every one of the sins you have named; and all the others in the calendar as well.”
“How on earth do you make out that, Daddy?”
“Take them in order as you mentioned them. Murder, burglary, theft, wife-beating, cheating at cards! What is murder? Killing without justification! Does not one who approaches another in false guise kill something? The murderer takes the life; the other kills what is often more than life: self respect, belief in human nature, faith. ”