Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Speaker, identity theft and identity fraud are terms used to refer to all types of crime in which someone wrongfully…”

“Mr. Speaker, identity theft and identity fraud are terms used to refer to all types of crime in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person's personal data in some way that involves fraud or deception, typically for economic or other gain including immigration benefits. The Federal Trade Commission received 161,819 complaints of someone using another's information in 2002. In 2003 the FTC performed a random sampling of households. The results from the survey suggest that almost 10 million Americans were the victim of some form of ID theft within the last year, which means that despite all of the attention to this type of crime since September 11, 2001, the incidence of this crime is increasing. As border security and international cooperation increases to combat terrorism, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations increasingly turn to stolen identities to hide themselves from law enforcement. For example, according to testimony from the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration, five Social Security numbers associated with some of the September 11 terrorists appeared to be counterfeit.”