D11, HW2, Constructing introductions & conclusions

Introductions

James, my brother-in-law was walking down the streets of Orange County on a nice cool night. As he is walking he is suddenly grabbed by the neck, shoved to the nearest wall face first, with a gun to the back of his head. The robber demanded James’ wallet in exchange for his life. James eagerly gave up the wallet and was left alone. After calling the police and having his credit cards canceled, he thought he was okay. Nonetheless, ten years later he gets denied credit approval through a bank, and found out he had been a victim of identity theft. He had a mysterious maxed out credit card of $25,000 and even a P.O. Box and cell phone registered in his name. Have you or have you known someone who has been a victim of identity theft? We need some kind of better system to help protect one from being a victim in the escalating crime of identity theft. What can the United States Federal Government put in place to aid in the fight of identity theft?

“The FTC estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year.” (Federal Trade Commission). Identity theft is a crime on the uprising and is growing larger by the year. Perhaps you yourself are apart of this statistic, or know someone who has been a victim. It can be an extremely rigorous process mentally and physically to go through. Your funds can be frozen and the agony of trying to prove you are the real John Doe seems to never be as easy as it should be. Many of these crimes are being committed over the Internet. The United States Government can definitely give out a helping hand to start decreasing this number. However, what can the United States Federal Government put in place to aid in the fight of identity theft?

Conclusions

James eventually was able to get the situation cleared up with police after several months and the person was apprehended. However, the agony he had to go through to get his name cleared was not a fun nor simple task. If a better system were to have been in place to either identity James as the real person, or stop the crime from being so easily committed in the first place, he might have been able to be spared from the evils of identity theft. Hopefully with some of the new third party companies rising up to help in identity theft, and the government stepping in we will start to see a decrease in the numbers of yearly identity thefts.

With identity theft continuing on it’s path up, the government it seems the government and third party companies are stepping in to help fight. With the combination of what everyone can do to protect themselves, along with what the government and these other companies can do, I believe there will be a shift sometime soon to where we start to see the numbers be much lower, pertaining to identity theft. However, how much can the government really do without compromising some of our rights, like freedom?