Bill would allow people to 'freeze' credit reports
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By NANCY HICKS / Lincoln Journal Star
Since someone tried to steal Jaimee Napp’s identity more than a year ago, the Omaha woman has carefully monitored her credit reports.
In the beginning, she looked at the reports at least twice a week. She still looks at least once a month to make sure no one is trying to get credit cards using her name. “I check out every little thing,” she said.
Napp also pays for a credit monitoring service that notifies her of any changes in her credit report.
DAY 5 * 85 REMAINING
Bills introduced
GAMBLING TAX: A bill (LB181) introduced by Sen. Lowen Kruse of Omaha would eliminate tax and fees on certain types of gambling, overturning an initiative passed by voters in 2004. Two ballot initiatives in 2004 to legalize casino gambling in the state failed, so the initiative regulates and taxes an industry that doesn’t exist. Repealing the initiative would take 33 votes, the result of another winning 2004 initiative that increased the number of votes needed to change a law passed by initiative.
MILITARY BENEFITS: A second bill that calls for exempting military retirement benefits from state income taxes was brought by Sen. Tom Carlson of Holdrege. Unlike its sister bill, this legislation (LB183) would exempt all military retirement benefits at once. A bill introduced by Sen. Abbie Cornett of Bellevue would phase in exemption of such benefits from income taxes, incrementally increasing the percentage of benefits exempted so that all benefits would be shielded by 2016.
METH: Consumers could buy more of the cold and flu medicines that contain an ingredient used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine under a bill (LB218) from Sen. Carol Burling of Kenesaw. In 2005, the Legislature restricted to 1.44 grams the amount of pseudoephedrine people can buy daily. That would increase that to 3.6 grams daily, the same maximum daily amount allowed under a federal law approved after the state law.
Quote
"We can't prohibit political calls — I don't want to do that. But I want to make certain they are reasonably placed."
–- Lincoln Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln, who introduced a bill to limit automated campaign calls
Coming today
The session will convene at 11 a.m. today; bill introductions continue.
Life would have been easier if Napp could have gotten a “security freeze” on her credit information the minute she discovered someone might be trying to steal her identity.
Napp has convinced Sen. Mick Mines of Blair to offer a credit security freeze bill (LB190), modeled after a Minnesota law, that allows Nebraskans to stop the release of any information in connection with the opening of a new account or the extension of credit.
“This ability to freeze your credit information” does make sense, particularly for those people who have had their identity stolen,” said Mines.
A freeze would have prevented any new company, one she didn’t already have a business relationship with, from getting her credit history from the credit bureaus. It would have prevented a would-be crook from using her credit.
A credit bureau gathers information about people’s credit history and provides it to businesses who pay for the information, Napp explained.
“So if I apply for credit at a department store, the store checks out the credit bureau information before giving me a credit card,” she explained.
Under a freeze, the credit bureau cannot give credit history information out to any new company. So if the department store can’t get any credit history, they aren’t likely to issue a card, she said.
Twenty-five states have some kind of credit freeze laws. Some apply only to identity theft victims. Others allow anyone to get a credit security freeze, like the bill Mines is offering.
His measure would allow any Nebraskan to freeze their credit reports at each of the three reporting agencies. Identity theft victims could get the freeze for free. Everyone else would pay a $5 fee to each credit bureau, under the original draft of the bill.
The consumer could remove the freeze permanently, or simply “thaw” it for a specific business.
Say you wanted to get credit to buy a car, said Napp. You could have your credit report thawed for the car loan only.
“The freeze is going to allow someone in my situation to redeem part of their life back. They don’t have to be constantly watching their credit,” she said.
National reports indicate that 100 million Americans have been victims of a security breach, where unauthorized people have access to personal information, said Napp, who is the executive director of the Identity Theft Action Council of Nebraska.
That’s one-third of the U.S. population, she pointed out.
“We don’t have any control over how employers, or government secure our information. They obviously aren’t doing it well.
Napp discovered someone was trying to steal her identity and obtain credit cards in her name when Discover Card left her a message about a new card in May 2005.
Napp researched her own credit reports and within two days discovered someone was trying to get four cards in her name. She stymied those attempts but is still concerned because she knows that others know her Social Security information.
Police have charged a woman who once worked with Napp with felony criminal impersonation, Napp said.
Since the identity theft attempt, Napp has researched the issue, formed the nonprofit corporation she now heads, and provides information to consumers on a Web site, www.idtheftne.org.
“This bill is really important. It gives the consumer some power in this battle of identity theft. Consumers don’t have any power. We just watch as companies lose our information or get it stolen from them,” she said.
Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.
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