"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
WaIIy wrote:
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:00:24 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Maybe not...if Bush wins, I'll be looking skyward to see the incoming
missiles.

I hope it doesn't hit the "scumbags" who don't like Kerry. hee hee


I'm afraid they'll hit all of us. I live in the Washington, D.C., SMSA,
and every day I go into town I wonder, "Is today the day the terrorists
are going to show us how silly the unPatriotic Act and Homeland
inSecurity are?"

Neither of these Bush misAdministration abortions will prevent
terrorists from doing us great harm. All they do is curtail the
liberties of decent citizens.


Someone stole my wife's ID and credit card info recently. He/she used that
info to set up accounts on 8-10 internet auction sites, selling stolen
products. I managed to trace the thief to an AOL email address...and
managed to "loosely" connect the email address to a phone number and
physical address in Myrtle Beach, SC. I contacted AOL's Community Action
Team, and found out that the person had also registered two other usernames
with my wife's profile. We were getting threatening and/or obscene crank
calls from all over the US, and I figured that the thief was using those
usernames linked to my wife's profile while he visited pervert chat rooms.
I had those inactivated last week, and haven't received a call since. The
AOL rep wouldn't tell me the name of the person registered to the email
address...nor the physical address. He wouldn't even confirm nor deny that
the name and address that I provided him matched the aol address. I
contacted Citibank's fraud dept., figuring that they could subpoena AOL and
get the name, but they weren't interested since the theft was less than
$700...and they weren't even sure which law enforcement agency would handle
it. (It was $700 from me...but they are peddling in tens of thousands of
dollars of stolen merchandise worldwide). I contacted my county's Sheriff
Dept. and got the usual "out of my jurisdiction" response. (At least he ran
the VIN for the motorcycle that the thief was selling online...but it came
up as fictitious.) I contacted the Horry County, SC sheriff, and they said
to contact Myrtle Beach police. I contacted Myrtle Beach police, and they
said that since he's selling the items online, it's not their jurisdiction
(what about possession of stolen property while living at a physical address
in SC!?!?!?)

I did a little more probing around and found that (thanks to the Patriot
Act) it's actually the Secret Service's Electronic Crime Task Force that
handles investigations into internet crimes. I called the Miami office and
asked to speak to an agent of the ECTF, and amazingly talked to someone
right away. He took about 10 minutes to collect all the info,...and said
that he'd subpoena the AOL address, subpoena the phone numbers of the crank
calls, and have an agent visit the physical address if it matched the AOL
address. He provided his email address and phone number in case I needed to
contact him any further..."especially if we received another phone call". I
spoke with him Friday, and he and a few dozen agents from his office were
going up to NY for the UN meeting on the Middle East. He stated that it may
be "several weeks" to "get to the bottom of it" if the leads that I provided
don't immediately produce results.


Having gone through all of this, I realized that without the Patriot Act,
there'd be no agency with the authority, know-how, or interest to even
pursue a case like this. No wonder internet crime had become so
popular...and had become a preferred method of communication and revenue
generation by the terrorists.

I've seen the Patriot Act work in my favor...but have yet to see it work
against me or any other law-abiding citizen that I know.