USAPI joins NCISS and other groups to educate Senators and Representatives about the causes of Identity Theft, the need to protect personal data, and the unintended consequences of "knee jerk" legislation.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PRWEB) July 25, 2005 -- "To remove the ability of licensed private investigators to positively identify individuals is ludicrous," says President Warren J. Sonne.
The United States Association of Professional Investigators (www.USAPI.org) joined with the National Council of Investigation & Security Services (www.NCISS.org) to lobby congress against an onslaught of knee-jerk and draconian legislation that will lock away previously available public record information.
Private Investigators are the only ones who have the time and ability to conduct Identity Theft investigations," claimed Warren J. Sonne, President and Founder of the United States Association of Professional Investigators (www.USAPI.org).
"The police are too busy to deal with someone who brings in their Credit Card bill with fraudulent transactions. Not only will the proposed legislation prevent PI's from helping these victims, it will also prevent them from positively identifying witness in criminal cases, dead-beat dads, judgment debtors, and will have a dramatic effect on both the Judicial System and Commerce in America," said Sonne.
The proposed legislation comes on the heals of the scandalous loss of information by commercial database providers ChoicePoint and Lexis/Nexis. According to Sonne, "The pending legislation will prevent the use of personal identifiers such as social security numbers and drivers license information that is currently used by private investigators to pick out the correct John Jones from the thousands of people with this same name."
The result of these laws would be a lop-sided playing field that provides the police and prosecutors with an unfair advantage over defendants. "What chance will a criminal defendant ever have if the only ones capable of quickly locating witnesses or other suspects is the police!" said Sonne.
"We are absolutely in favor of forcing the database providers to better safeguard the personal identifiers of American citizens, yet these security breaches had nothing to do with private investigators. Force the database companies to better protect their records, make it illegal to provide this information to the general public, shut down the Internet sites that blatantly advertise and sell this information to anyone, but provide the same exemption for private investigators as you do for law enforcement," was Sonne's message to members of the House Judiciary Committee.
According to Sonne, "This will be an ongoing battle, one that will continue to be fought until the legislators clearly understand what private investigators do."
For more information about joining visit the Website www.USAPI.org, or contact e-mail protected from spam bots or by calling 866.95.USAPI.
For more information, contact:
Sue Furman
(866) 958-7274 or 866.95.USAPI
www.USAPI.org
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