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For the second time in the same case, law enforcement in Denver turned away a key component in hundreds of instances of identity theft. The first time, it was a box full of stolen documents found in a storage unit, turned away by a Denver Police officer. This time, it was the main suspect, turned away by the Denver Sheriff's Department. The Denver Sheriff's Department admits the man believed to be at the center of an identity theft operation, 46-year-old Paul Simmons, tried to turn himself in at the Denver City Jail 16 hours before police arrested him. A warrant had been issued for his arrest and was entered into the system at 10:15 a.m, according to Sonny Jackson, Denver Police Spokesman. Sheriff's spokesperson Capt. Frank Gale told 9Wants to Know Tuesday that Simmons walked into the Denver City Jail around 8 p.m. Monday night. The Denver Sheriff's Department runs the city jail. It is not staffed by the Denver Police Department. Gale says Simmons told a sheriff's deputy he had received a call from an investigator with Denver Police saying he was wanted for questioning in connection with the identity theft case featured on 9NEWS. Gale says the sheriff's deputy then told Simmons there was not a record of him being wanted in the computer, but sent Simmons to check in with the Denver Police Department housed in a separate building across the courtyard at 1331 Cherokee St. Gale said the deputy did not know if Simmons ever made it to the Denver Police building. Denver Police spokesperson Sonny Jackson said Simmons never did. "We really wish he would have taken the 50 steps across the courtyard and talked to us, that would have saved us a lot of time today." Jackson said. "If he [Simmons] really wanted to turn himself in we would have been more than happy to take him into custody."

With all the attention Google StreetView's clash with a baby deer evoked, it can be easy to overlook the tool's crime-fighting good side. Not too long ago, StreetView was instrumental in returning a kidnapped Massachusetts girl safely to her home, and just recently, it helped a Swiss police team detect a 1.2-acre marijuana field and nab the gang responsible. As with all things Google, you have to take the bad with the good. And the good can be pretty good, as reported in the Worcester Telegram. When 9-year-old Natalie Maltais was kidnapped by her grandmother and taken to a motel in rural Virginia, Athol police were able to track her down using her cellphone and Google StreetView. The cellphone's GPS data focused on a 300-foot area in Natural Bridge, Va. Using StreetView, the Worcester cops plugged in the coordinates of the area, navigated around a bit and saw a nearby motel that looked promising. When they sent Virginia police to the site, they found the grandmother along with the girl, and returned her safely to her legal guardians. A happy ending. Similarly, the AP yesterday reported that Swiss police used Google Earth to discover the pot field and make several arrests. While working the case, the police used Google Earth to zero in on a suspect's residence, only to stumble upon the field. Although it had been camouflaged by corn planted all along its perimeter, the weed field couldn't hide from Google's Earth's piercing satellite gaze. The find led to the arrest of 16 suspects who have allegedly sold up to 7 tons of hashish and marijuana, with an annual turnover of 3 million to 10 million francs (or $2.5 million to $8.64 million) per year. So yes, while Google can be insensitive at times, especially when it comes to images uploaded by StreetView, it's also a proven force for good in the world. In other words, a tool is only as good (or bad) as the person using it. Google doesn't kill Bambis, people do.

On Monday two women from Fort Pierce were arrested for committing 300 different cases of Identity theft on the Treasure Coast and South Florida. The two women go by the names of Tychell Letrein Robinson, 33 and Patrice V. Johnson, 26. According to the Federal Trade Commission, in 2007 Florida took fifth place in nation with regards to the number of ID theft victims per 100,000 residents. The FTC also estimated that about 9 million Americans have their identities stolen every year. The Fort Pierce Police Department, the Port St. Lucie Police Department, the Sheriff's Office as well as the U.S. Postal Service worked together in a two year investigation in order to track down these two criminals. Law enforcement agencies discovered that the arrested had somehow managed to steal the personal information of several victims and open new accounts in their names. Authorities believe that the women bought a lot of their identifying information from accomplices. In a news conference on Monday afternoon, Sheriff Ken Mascara mentioned that criminal circles were well aware that the arrested would pay accomplices $50 in exchange for peoples sensitive information. Authorities discovered that the two women met while they were both under the employment of Liberty Medical. Apparently Robinson headed the criminal operation and taught Johnson all she needed to know with regards to making thousands of dollars every week through identity theft. The arrested managed to target victims in Florida from Orlando to Clearwater and even Palm Beach. The majority of victims were from St. Lucie County and the Treasure Coast. Unfortunately it is still not clear to law enforcements exactly how the women obtained all the stolen information. police.jpg It was in the early hours of Monday morning that the police arrived at the homes of the arrested with search warrants. Two vehicles, six computers and ledgers filled with victims sensitive information were confiscated by authorities, and the women w

A Port Washington medical practice was defrauded of nearly $250,000 by a former employee who for four years paid her credit card bills with automatic debits from a doctor's checking account, Nassau police said. Debra Camilo, 42, of 110 Malba Dr., Whitestone, began the transfers in the spring of 2004 and even though she was fired a year later -- for reasons unrelated to the fraud -- she continued until July 2008, police said. All told, the former office manager made more than 80 unauthorized debit transfers to her Visa credit card amounting to $241,341, police said. Crimes against property bureau detectives arrested Camilo Thursday afternoon in Manhasset and charged her with grand larceny, identity theft and fraud. She was scheduled for arraignment Friday in First District Court, Hempstead.

An Orange County woman accused of using a false identity to obtain breast implants from a plastic surgeon is now facing three felony charges, including commercial burglary, grand theft and identity theft. Yvonne Jean Pampellonne, 30, nicknamed the 'Breast Implant Bandit', appeared in a Westminster court Wednesday. She did not enter a plea and asked that her arraignment be continued so she could hire a new attorney. Pampellone surrendered to police in March after detectives caught up with her using breast implant tracking numbers. Police say that in September of 2008 Pampellonne used the personal information of another woman to establish a line of credit at the Pacific Center for Plastic Surgery in Huntington Beach. Doctors performed $12,000 in liposuction and breast augmentation surgery at the center, police say, charging $12,000 to the phony line of credit and exchanging her existing implants for new ones. Medical staff at the center became suspicious after Pampellonne never returned for follow-up appointments. Because Pampellone had old breast implants replaced, they were able to track her down using the serial numbers that appear on every set of implants. Pampellone faces 3 years, 8 months in prison if convicted. She remains free on $20,000 bail and is due back in court on June 29th.

In a 4-to-3 ruling, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the State Police violated a criminal suspect's rights under the State Constitution when it placed a GPS tracking device inside the bumper of his van without obtaining a warrant. The police had used the device to monitor the movements of the suspect, Scott C. Weaver, for more than two months. But the court ordered the evidence gathered from the device suppressed and ordered a new trial for Mr. Weaver. In three written opinions, the judges on the court debated the constitutional issues raised by the growing use of global positioning system technology as a tool of surveillance. The case could set an important precedent for state and local police agencies.

Police in the US may soon be getting an iPhone add-on that will equip them with a facial recognition technology called MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System). The device attaches to an iPhone like a case and allows the police to take a photo of a person to determine if they are a suspect or have a criminal history.

The industry coalition says it is enlisting the ISPs in its effort to "curb online theft" but critics say the ISPs are invading their customers' privacy and turning themselves into the Internet Secret Police.

By now, many employees are uncomfortably aware that their every keystroke at work, from email on office computers to text messages on company phones, can be monitored legally by their employers. What employees typically don't expect is for the company to spy on them while on password-protected sites using nonwork computers. But even that privacy could be in jeopardy. A case brewing in federal court in New Jersey pits bosses against two employees who were complaining about their workplace on an invite-only discussion group on MySpace.com, a social-networking site owned by News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal. The case tests whether a supervisor who managed to log into the forum -- and then fired employees who badmouthed supervisors and customers there -- had the right to do so. The case has some legal and privacy experts concerned that companies are intruding into areas that their employees had considered off limits. "The question is whether employees have a right to privacy in their non-work-created communications with each other. And I would think the answer is that they do," said Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment expert and partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP in New York. The legal landscape is murky. For the most part, employers don't need a reason to fire nonunion workers. But state laws in California, New York and Connecticut protect employees who engage in lawful, off-duty activities from being fired or disciplined, according to a report prepared by attorneys at the firm Proskauer Rose LLP. While private conversations might be covered under those laws, none of the statutes specifically addresses social networking or blogging. Thus, privacy advocates expect to see more of these legal challenges. In February, three police officers in Harrison, N.Y., were suspended after they allegedly made lewd remarks about the town mayor on a Facebook account. The officers mistakenly thought the remarks were protected with a password, but city officials view

Stunned applicants filling out immigration forms are now being warned their personal information can be shared with the RCMP, national security and intelligence agents, and even foreign cops. The immigrants, many who arrive here from brutal regimes, are being told that they must sign a consent form or their requests will not be dealt with by federal immigration officials. One form, which was obtained by Sun Media, said the data can be shared with the Canada Border Services Agency, RCMP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service and foreign police. TARGET FRIENDS The information can be used to target friends or family members of those who say negative things about their homelands, said Jamal Kaker, of the Afghan Association of Ontario. "This will impact a lot of immigrants in many communities," he said yesterday. "This is scary because the information will get back to Afghanistan in no time." Toronto lawyer Guidy Mamann said it can be deadly for immigrants who give information that may be negative to their governments and are then refused by Canada. "The rights of these immigrants are being trampled," Mamann said. "All this was done under the radar without an announcement." He said foreign police -- some working for the worst regimes -- will be able to find out where their nationals who fled to Canada live and allegations they have leveled against their homelands. "All this information will now be shared," Mamann said. "The lives of immigrants and some Canadian citizens will become an open book." SIGN FORMS He said Canadian citizens are affected if they sign forms to sponsor a spouse or loved ones. "It's another nail in the coffin for civil rights in Canada," Mamann said. "Negative information against governments will now be open for sharing." Toronto lawyer Mendel Green called the changes troubling. "This is a serious breach of our privacy laws," he said. "It appears to be an excess of authority. Big Brother wants to watch our visitors." Federal immig

Paperwork containing the personal medical information of at least 66 patients at Massachusetts General Hospital was lost this month when an employee apparently left it on an MBTA train. The hospital sent out letters last week to patients whose identities were included in the lost paperwork, telling them the information listed their names and dates of birth, and private medical information, including their diagnoses and the name of the provider with whom they met. The material constituted billing records for patients who attended the hospital's Infectious Disease Associates outpatient practice on Fruit Street on March 4. Deborah A. Adair, the hospital's privacy officer and director of health information services, said in a statement released yesterday that while the incident was regrettable, the hospital followed privacy laws by immediately alerting affected patients and authorities, including the state attorney general's office and the Department of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation. "[Hospital] police and security are thoroughly investigating this matter not only with an eye toward recovering the missing information but also toward making sure that this will not happen again," Adair said. "Our information privacy and security policies and procedures are among the strongest in the healthcare industry, but incidents such as this remind us that we must continue to review and revise them, as well as continue to educate our staff on best practices to avoid incidents such as this." According to hospital security reports, a manager in the infectious disease center's billing unit told supervisors that she left the paperwork on a Red Line train the morning of March 9. The manager said she had brought the paperwork home with her to work over the weekend and left the material sometime between 7:30 and 9 a.m. The Transit Police were notified, but the paperwork was not found.

An insider at the California Water Service Company in San Jose broke into the company's computer system and transferred $9 million into offshore bank accounts and fled the country. Abdirahman Ismail Abdi, 32, was an auditor for the water company, which delivers drinking water throughout the state and is located in San Jose, Calif. Abdi resigned from his position on April 27. Allegedly, that night he went back to work and made three wire transfers totaling more than $9 million from the company's accounts to an account in Qatar. Abdi was seen by a janitor on the night of the crime, according to the San Jose Mercury News, citing court documents filed Wednesday in the federal court at San Jose. The next morning, the water company discovered what had been done and worked with their bank to have the money returned to their account. The company notified police, who are currently investigating the case, Jose Garcia, public information officer at the San Jose Police Department, told SCMagazineUS.com on Friday.

Internal controls failure.

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it sued the Justice Department and other U.S. agencies to get information about their policies for using social networks including Facebook and Twitter in investigations, data collection and surveillance. The civil rights group said in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in San Francisco that the government has used social-networking sites in conducting investigations and hasn't clarified the scope of that use or whether there are any restrictions or oversight to prevent abuses. The EFF said in its complaint that it is seeking the information to "help inform Congress and the public about the effect of such uses and purposes on citizens' privacy rights and associated legal protections." It cited news articles that reported police searching Facebook photos for evidence of underage drinking and an FBI search of an individual's home after the person sent messages on Twitter during the G-20 Summit notifying protesters of police movements. Facebook, based in Palo Alto, California, is the world's largest social networking site with more than 300 million users who post photos, messages and other information on their own free Facebook pages. Twitter, based in San Francisco, is a free Web service with 58 million users that lets people send 140- character messages, called "tweets," to multiple followers. EFF, also based in San Francisco, filed Freedom of Information Act requests with federal agencies in October. None of the agencies had completed processing the requests by the applicable 20-day deadline, according to the complaint. The lawsuit seeks a court order for the government to process the requests and produce documents."

Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations. The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates. "While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. "Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level." Joining Cornyn was Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let "law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals."

New Jersey lawmakers are considering new legislation that would require Facebook, MySpace and others to police social networking sites for offensive posts or else face potential consumer fraud lawsuits. But some lawyers say that even if the measure is enacted, it's not likely to have much impact on social networking sites because the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes such sites from lawsuits based on material posted by users. The bill is part of state Attorney General Anne Milgram's Internet safety initiative. "The social networking site safety act is intended to deter cyber-bullying and the misuse of social networking Web sites," the Office of Attorney General said in a statement about the measure. "The bill empowers users of social networking sites to take steps to stop harassment or exploitation." Last year, Milgram garnered headlines by launching a fraud investigation of gossip site JuicyCampus.com -- where users frequently posted insults about college students -- but no legal action resulted. (That site folded last month for financial reasons.) Attempts to rein in cyberbullying might be politically popular, but this type of state effort to regulate global Web sites is also likely to prove useless, say cyber lawyers. "We need to recognize that legislating on the Internet can't be done on a state-by-state basis," said Parry Aftab, an expert on Web safety and cyber-abuse. "We can't have a different law in each state."

They may be after the phone, but what about the data? How much of your life is on your mobile device? Some misguided companies let employees use personal devices for work. I wonder what an auditor would say about due diligence and due care when data is leaked through such ignorance. Think, before you set a lax password, or none at all. Karl Thieves are increasingly going after iPhones and other smartphones but victims now can fight back with technology. One device allows a user to remotely activate a loud siren designed to rattle the thief. Another application, designed for iPhones, can reveal the phone's location. Police statistics show petty crime is down in New York but anecdotal evidence and recent headlines about street muggings targeting costly and coveted devices like Apple's iPhone and T-Mobile's Sidekick have disturbed smartphone users concerned about protecting access to e-mail, passwords and other data.

Thieves are increasingly going after iPhones and other smartphones but victims now can fight back with technology. One device allows a user to remotely activate a loud siren designed to rattle the thief. Another application, designed for iPhones, can reveal the phone's location. Police statistics show petty crime is down in New York but anecdotal evidence and recent headlines about street muggings targeting costly and coveted devices like Apple's iPhone and T-Mobile's Sidekick have disturbed smartphone users concerned about protecting access to e-mail, passwords and other data.

Further proof that LA has it head in the clouds - A plan to overhaul the city of Los Angeles' computer system is raising concerns about the security of confidential information. The nation's second-largest city is considering dumping its in-house computer network for Google Inc. e-mail and office programs that are accessed over the Internet. But the city police union says it doesn't have enough information to determine if sensitive witness and investigation files will be secure from hackers. Google spokeswoman Aviva Gilbert says security "is built into the DNA of our products."

A plan to overhaul the city of Los Angeles' computer system is raising concerns about the security of confidential information. The nation's second-largest city is considering dumping its in-house computer network for Google Inc. e-mail and office programs that are accessed over the Internet. But the city police union says it doesn't have enough information to determine if sensitive witness and investigation files will be secure from hackers. Google spokeswoman Aviva Gilbert says security "is built into the DNA of our products."

"A federal prosecutor tracked down a Seattle fraud suspect in Mexico this year through his Facebook posts. A man's Twitter messages to fellow demonstrators at a recent protest in Pittsburgh led to an FBI search of his home and short-lived charges of interfering with police. The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly are investing in a software firm that monitors half a million social networking Web sites each day. There's nothing wrong with law enforcement agencies' using Internet technology to investigate crimes, Bay Area privacy advocates say. But they want the federal government to say how, when and why its agents look at Americans' social networking accounts."

"You probably don't analyze the chatter or quality of your social media connections, but creditors may be doing just that. In their quest to identify creditworthy customers, some are tapping into the information you and your friends reveal in the virtual stratosphere. Before calling the privacy police, though, understand how it's really being used."

The social media outlets you use may affect credit offers!

Companies that track consumer behavior on the Web for targeted advertising without proper consent are near their "last chance" to self-regulate, the head of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Monday. Privacy advocates say regulations on big phone and Internet companies, such as AT&T Inc and Google Inc, are too lax, giving the firms excessive control over consumers' personal information. "From my perspective, the industry is pretty close to its last clear chance to demonstrate" that it can police itself, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told the Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit in Washington. Earlier this year, the FTC issued new guidance urging websites to tell consumers that data is being collected during their searches and to allow them to opt out. If companies fail to do a better job of making their privacy policies understandable to the average person, momentum will keep building for greater regulation, Leibowitz said. "It's really up to industry."