Ironically, the best way to prevent identity theft is for the corporation you turn to when your credit card is stolen to have enough information about you that they can prevent theft. If you say you don't want the company to have the information and share it, you are in a box -- the information can't be shared with the police department or other law enforcement agencies.
We are in a whole new world. It's not a question of whether information should be shared but rather with whom the information should be shared. I want the company I am dealing with on the Internet to know everything about me so that it won't accept an order from somebody who pretends to be me. If it knows everything about me, the company can better serve me, and I won't get scammed by someone pretending to be me.
Back to info sharing. The FBI and other government agencies have been criticised for lack of information sharing and poor use of technology. Has there been progress on this front?
In the present atmosphere -- an election year -- the most precious thing we have in the Senate right now is floor time. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will not bring a bill to the floor unless it will pass by unanimous consent. He will not bring anything to the floor that will be contentious or requires significant debate.
We have 67 legislative days left in this session, and the huge issues are soaking up all the floor's time. We have appropriation bills, the energy bill to consider again and others. Anything in this area that gets passed had better be pretty noncontroversial. In this legislative atmosphere, don't look for anything until 2005, unless it's absolute milquetoast.
