fresh thinking needed

A quote in the article says the hackers are performing at a level of sophistication that rivals foreign intelligence services. The implication: Payment card data security requires much, much more than just forcing merchants to lock down data and comply with the PCI (payment card industry data security standard). Card data security is on par with national security issues. Card security requires wholesale rethinking of the credit card system. The US Federal Trade Commission misunderstands the magnitude of the problem. The FTC is locked in an old-fashioned belief that data in-security is due to stupid merchants (like TJX) treating consumers (and their privacy) "unfairly" by failing to secure their systems. We need fresh thinking and better leadership on this issue from the FTC. --Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/03/ftc-treats-tjx-unfairly.html