John Doe target says they are the victim of identity theft

At least one target of Wisconsin’s politically charged John Doe investigation — whose home was raided and whose personal information was seized — tells Wisconsin Reporter they’re a victim of identity theft.

The individual spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe comes with a strict gag order. Targets who speak publicly about the John Doe could go to jail.

Wisconsin Reporter obtained a copy of an Internal Revenue Service letter alerting the subject to the identify theft problem.

The letter, titled, “Identity Verification Service,” advises that IRS records indicate a tax return has been filed using the source’s identity.

“Sometimes, criminals attempt to file a fraudulent return and claim a tax refund under a stolen identity,” the letter states. “We appreciate your help in identifying that the return filed under your identity isn’t your own.”

The IRS says it will not issue the refund and that the agency will “ensure that steps are taken to protect” the source’s identity in the future. The individual is advised to visit the IRS’s Taxpayer Guide to Identity Theft, or to contact the Identity Theft Specialized Unit.

Thanks to the ID fraud, the source will not be able to file a tax return electronically this year.

IRS agents said they could not comment on particular cases and could not speak to advisories mailed to filers.

At present, there is no way to independently confirm that someone involved in the John Doe investigation either used the individuals’ identification in filing the phony tax return or failed to protect it, but the incident does raise questions about the integrity of the security of the seized personal information.

The target of the John Doe probe told Wisconsin Reporter they will likely “never know the extent to which their information was disclosed or the identities of all those with access.”

A lot of people’s lives — their personal/financial information — are in the hands of the prosecutors and their assistants who have targeted dozens of conservative organizations and the campaign of Gov. Scott Walker in a lengthy campaign finance investigation. Critics claim the John Doe probe is nothing more than a political witch hunt, launched in September 2012 by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat.

While several courts have rejected the prosecutors’ legal theory involving illegal coordination between Walker’s campaign and the conservative groups during Wisconsin’s recall season, the status of the investigation remains stalled until the state Supreme Court addresses John Doe-related challenges.

Still, the seized property of several subjects remains in the custody of the investigators.

For the source now dealing with identity theft, it has been a very long time — since Oct. 3, 2013.

It was on that day, before sunrise, when law enforcement officers conducted paramilitary-style raids on the homes and offices of multiple targets. They showed up in quiet neighborhoods with their floodlights flashing. One of the targets has told Wisconsin Reporter that police threatened to use battering rams to break down the front door, but the targets let them in.

Multiple sources have confirmed that in a number of cases children and spouses of the targets were at home at the time of the raids, some closed off in rooms while the investigators rooted through paper files, computers and smart phones.

It’s not clear just who has access to the seized information, which includes bank records, Social Security numbers and other financially identifying data. John Doe prosecutors and their attorneys have failed to return several phone calls from Wisconsin Reporter seeking comment.

Madison attorney Dean Strang, who represents an unnamed petitioner in the case against the John Doe probe before the Supreme Court, said he has asked the state Government Accountability Board about the status of the targets’ possessions.

“The executive director (Kevin Kennedy) did acknowledge receipt of my letter” seeking answers, Strang said. But Kennedy did not address the contents of Strang’s letter. Strang received a subsequent letter from Kennedy confirming the board discussed the matter but, again, offered no answers.

Strang pointed to an incident last summer in which a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit released information that was supposed to have remained sealed. While Strang said there wasn’t specific banking information in that massive document dump, there was plenty of identifying information.

“There were names, email addresses, obvious references to where people live and work. All of that,” the attorney said.

It appears that Kelly Rindfleisch WILL see some jail time thanks to the John Doe. Part of me admits that those around Walker WERE found guilty of malfeasance by a jury of their peers, but the other part of me thinks this is just more of the same bad kettle of fish where this bogus John Doe is concerned. I hope her lawyer is serious about taking it all the way to the WISC!

My local Conserva Babe is no longer jumping to Kelly’s defense and you KNOW how we Conservatives are about not playing by the rules. I think THAT speaks volumes, too.

http://watchdog.org/206776/supreme-court-kelly-rindfleisch-fourth-amendment/

What say you? I mean I find it VERY HARD to believe that the Enemy Media isn’t all OVER this - I mean, they HATE Walker so much - and yet the ONLY media outlet that seems to be covering it is Wisconsin Reporter?

I’m very confused...

You’re most likely right. This IS going to be an issue, should he run.

Especially against Hillary! as she’ll be throwing THIS cat cr@p in his face in debates.

“So! Everyone AROUND you was convicted and charged with campaigning on the Taxpayer’s Dime. What say YOU Governor Walker?”

“Hillary! Everyone that has ever remotely crossed YOU is dead.”

*SNORT*

Oh, it’s going to be fun! ;)

Due to the inherently insecure systems for establishing Identity including pointedly the Social Security system. Identity theft is going to be a growing problem. Unfortunately its only a matter of time before every last American has their identity information stolen & compromised Probably within the next decade or two given the current rate.

The problem of course is not only the simplistic nature of the information but the sheer number of parties that your required to give it to all but guarantees eventually one of them will be compromised, and it only takes one. Just a few months back Blue-Cross Blue Shield compromised 80 million of us nearly a 1/3 of the population. A few years back South Carolina compromised just about it’s entire population.
Even big organizations with all the IT security resources in the world can’t prevent such breaches, and a book could be written on all the inertly human based reasons why. {It really comes down to the simple fact that the environment we now live in gives everyone in the world 24/7 access to our ‘store’ yet we are only capable of guarding against a few people some of the time with general rules, all the while latterly everything is on our ‘store shelf’s’ waiting to be stolen.}

In any event there is an even greater point to be made, The only reason we know about theses breaches that have happened is because some smart IT people detected and identified the illegitimate activity the admired to it. This isn’t something a good hacker allows. Thus in short one companies personnel ‘won’ a battle with one of millions of hackers after the fact. How many did they and everyone else lose? Probably as many or more than they won, which means you can probably double or even triple the number of Compromised Americans out there, just as you can probably quadruple the number of compromised IT systems.

In light of this probability, as well as the constant stream of new attacks frankly it would be surprising if upwards of 95% of our population doesn’t end up having their Identity compromised sometimes in the next 20 or so years.

Thus this war as you might say, is already lost if your fighting it to protect the old Identity information. Given the simplistic nature of that ‘identity’ information being so heavily rooting heavily in the Social Security system which consist of little more than 4 useful digits and a name & maybe birth date. It is frankly surprising given modern computer technology that we haven’t lost a lot more.

Probably more a problem of better fruit to pick than anything else. No amount of Computer security break-thous at this point will ever change that which has already happened even if you could miraculously get everyone to adopt it now.

A new more secure system of Identity verification is required, and short of that a reordering of our Credit and tax system will be necessary to move away from such flimsy Identity dependency.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.