Identity Theft - What's to be done??

That's exactly the reason, why I would want it on a ballot: a people vote
is far more democratic as giving myself into someone's hands who doesn't
know what the hell they're talking about, ie. our current government.

Bush himself is not spying on my conversations, but homeland security
might.

As a Notary, we are told by our national organization to be more careful in checking the identities of people who ask for notarizations. However, we're given few tools to use vis a vis how to tell a fraudulent piece of ID, and the additional checks aren't necessary for everything. You can get around the whole thing if you know the people you're notarizing for. That's not awful. After all, if I know you, it's kind of redundant to ask you for your credit card.

But it might not be a bad idea to make it a matter of course for a pretty serious type of identification to have to be presented for notarizations -- and maybe require that more things be notarized. I'm not saying that in order to try to get more work. Rather, it's just another safeguard. When we bought our last car, the sales contract didn't require a notarization. Perhaps it should have.

To repeat myself, penalties need to be put in place that are serious deterrents to identity theft. When it first became prevalent about 10 years ago, and as recently as five years ago, it wasn't even considered a crime.

Actually, unless things have just recently changed, this is not true.

We just came back from living in Germany for 10 years and when we left, we were still getting our bill itemized.

We knew who we called, for how long etc. It was great, because I was able to pinpoint how much of our phone bill was my wife calling her sister in England and the US which eventually caused us to use Skype instead.

Anyway, they do keep track and itemize everything. They may not keep it forever, I can't speak for that, but you can definitely see details on your bill.

Apparently you have a police issue. Is it because you get a lot of tickets?

Hi TTH, nice to see you venture out of the Marlboro thread.

You have to know that cj is our resident redneck here, he likes to
shoot everything, and please never ask him about his gun collection,
you'll sit here for hours on end.