Feds seek 'compliance program' for US kit reseller

Yay ignorant fearmongering

"United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, said: “Congress and the public have become increasingly concerned with the ease by which people can unlawfully obtain items and sell them over the Internet under false or assumed identities,” said United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz."

A couple seconds thought tell me that this is simply not true. To wit: It is actually slightly harder to trade under "false or assumed identities" online than it is in the real world. What is easier online is to find trusting people who'll take the kit off your hands. eBay has had a major hand in this, but I don't see ms Ortiz lambasting them. Speculating as to the why I'll leave as an excercise.

So either dear ms Ortiz is implying congress and public are ignorant and/or stupid, or she herself is, or perhaps both. In any case, she's not doing anyone a favour by trying to turn put the screws on just about everyone's privacy because of a couple bad apples. Even the stolen kit still has to be obtained physically, or you'd have a different scam.

What is very, very abusable is online ordering --or before that, by mail order(!)-- with stolen credit card details, but that problem lies in how credit cards work: You "prove" your identity by handing over all the details. You simply cannot fix that by requiring even more details to be handed over, like "scanned or photocopied government ID". That just makes you *more* vulnerable and means *more* ID theft will be happening, not less.

So, dear ms Ortiz, please take back your words and eat them. Then find somebody competent to explain to you the relevant details of how you should do your job. DHS style fearmongering is not something the American Public will thank you for.