News & Events
For media inquiries and other press-related questions, please contact the NAAG Press Center at (202) 326-6027.
News from the States
State News Headlines
January 26, 2007
The following headlines are compiled as an internal service for state Attorney General offices only. This list is not exhaustive and is a snapshot of news from around the country compiled through the use of various search engines.
Online public records facilitate ID theft
WASHINGTON - Cynthia Lambert never imagined that getting a speeding ticket would turn her life upside down. She was shocked to discover that a county court in Ohio routinely posted traffic tickets and other public records on its Web site. "I just never dreamt that they would scan that ticket and put it online for anyone to look at," she says. It revealed key personal information — driver's license number, date of birth, Social Security number, address, and more. And it wasn't just nosey neighbors trolling the site. A ring of identity thieves was taking those public records and creating fake IDs — opening credit accounts, forging checks and racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges using her name and others. Full Article
Fight Against Immigrant Smuggling Follows Money Trail
PHOENIX -- In 2001, Arizona state prosecutors trying to stem the growing tide of immigrant smuggling found a Western Union outlet in the border town of Douglas that was doling out more than $91,000 a month -- this in a community where the per capita income was barely $10,000 a year. People across the country, prosecutors said, were sending money to the little Western Union shop in Douglas -- and scores others like it in Arizona -- to pay smugglers to sneak illegal immigrants into the United States. To fight back, Attorney General Terry Goddard employed a controversial technique known as a damming warrant to seize $17 million in money transfers into hundreds of Western Union locations in Arizona, prosecute scores of immigrant smugglers and deport hundreds of people in a program he marvels at because of its "elegant simplicity." Full Article
Credit card industry needs more oversight, critics say
WASHINGTON - It's time the federal government began protecting Americans from unsafe credit cards, just like it does from unsafe toasters and cars, consumer groups told a Senate panel Thursday. Credit card companies routinely offer cards that have been loaded up with tricks and traps that consumers don't know about or understand, causing millions of Americans to become hopelessly mired in debt, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee during an oversight hearing on the credit card industry. Full Article
Leslie R. Kershaw
Communications Assistant
Office: (202) 326-6027
Fax: (202) 408-8061
Email: lnelson@naag.org
