ATS: Private Information To Be Used By Government

A company, ChoicePoint, who deals private consumer and legal information has announced it's transformation as a go-between for the government. ChoicePoint will allow use of its database as a source of intelligence for national security and law enforcement tasks. As the reports of people are not considered consumer reports, they are not covered under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Though the act doesn't necessarily limit access to information, it does ensure accuracy and proper disclosure, a gratitude that will not cover ChoicePoints activities.



One can't help but think that the Patriot Act, with its many concessions for the expanded access to information, had a hand in making this possible. The lines continue to grey with regards to government and corporate rule. There are many interesting aspects to this company, one, that it was started in 1997 - a relatively short time ago - and is now a multi-billion dollar entity.
ChoicePoint was involved in the Florida voting controversy and was accused of favoring the Republican Party by knowingly supplying false information. See. wikipedia link.
About a year ago, ChoicePoint bought data on ~65 million registered Mexican Voters. I include this because it is a bizarre move from an American company and illustrates the reach of this little known behometh. See link below.
Every conspiracy, to be considered as valid, must have a tie to Wal-Mart. See below link.


Related News Links:
en.wikipedia.org
informationclearinghouse.info
www.walmart.com

[edit on 20-1-2005 by TrickmastertricK]

Choicepoint/Securepoint have been doing this for a long time now. I don't think it has anything to do with the Patriot Act. They were a client at a former employer of mine years ago.
They've dealt info to the government since well before then.

One other point. Consumer lists and databases are bought and traded on a daily basis. From your online purchases to what you buy at the store with your Club card. They can get it up front like this, or a CIA/NSA/DIA front company can buy them.

all the information that they use, is useless except to cause problems with duplicate names...

unless they use OUR personal identification number...i.e. social security number...
and it is supposidly illegal for a company that you don't personally do business with and personally provide that info to; to have.

so unless they become governmentally included with the social security administration, then they can never give dependable data...

so their claim that they can provide "actionable" data (prosecutable for those that didn't catch the lingo) is bogus, unless they themselves are breaking the law

The info on the florida contract being awarded to them for 500 TIMES the cost of the previous contract should be drawing an investigation.... that kind of waste doesn't happen unless their is big KICKBACKS and other corruption... and the fact that they didn't open it for bid means that they must have blackmail on someone BIG....
If i lived in florida... i would be fuming... and calling and researching...
over 2 million spent for a contract that cost $5,000 the year before... WOW!

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The florida election officials were, according to testimony, responsible for the fraudulent voter purge, not Choice Point. The company voiced strenuous objections to what the top election officials were doing.

They do, however, seem to be benefitting from Republican control of Washington.
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