January 31, 2006

Mr. Certo, Joel, et al,

I received your letter today dated January 26, 2006 in response to my message below. For the benefit of all others on this message, I have attached a copy hereto.

First of all, let me say how disgusted I am that the facts of this situation have been so grossly exaggerated and that Indiana insists that it is within its legal right to put me at risk of being arrested when I am the victim of ID theft. My heart rate went through the roof when I read what you wrote and my blood pressure is probably off the scale. My anger and frustration at this point cannot be put into words.

In the attached letter, you claim that I made personal attacks against Silverman. This is not the case at all. In what way did my e-mail below qualify as an attack?

You claim that I sent spam e-mail. This is also incorrect. Spam is, by definition, the transmission of commercial electronic mail message. The message to which you are referring, I assume, is a very polite e-mail message requesting that Silverman address the very serious problem wherein the BMV is improperly misusing my Social Security Number in a way that is contrary to the intent of federal law and is putting me under undue stress and risk of arrest. In no way should such a message be considered "spam". I have attached a copy of that message hereto for the benefit of others to read.

Perhaps the most serious misstatement is where you say that I have made harassing and threatening phone calls. I did no such thing and your statement that I did is libelous. I contacted the BMV on February 2, 2005 the day after I was unable to renew my driver's license in North Carolina. I spoke with a few people that week, one of whom was a lady in "legal" named CJ. I could not get anything accomplished due to the excessive bureaucracy and narrow sightedness of the BMV. I will admit that I lost my temper that day talking with CJ and got very loud. Even so, there are several important points: 1) I never threatened CJ or any other person at the BMV; 2) I was angry and had every reason to be angry; 3) I subsequently apologized to CJ for getting so upset. I harbor not ill feelings toward her or any of the others I've worked with. I actually spoke with very few people at the BMV and contacted them only a few times, so the use of the word "repeated" is quite an exaggeration and "harassing" is entirely wrong. I have been patient this year and, in my opinion, probably too patient waiting for results. As for the other state employees in Indiana, including the State Police, the prosecutor's office, and the governor's office, I have had limited dialog and most certainly nothing that could remotely be classified as threatening or harassing. The one person I did have a several discussions with over the past 4 years is Ms. Johnson in the State Police. She has been very wonderful to work with and most helpful to me. I appreciate what she has done very much.

What you have said in your letter misrepresents through exaggeration the communication I have had with the BMV.

With that said, am I angry? Absolutely. The State of Indiana is knowingly using my personal information and publishing false reports to the entirety of the United States, making it hard for me to obtain or renew a driver's license, putting me at risk for being arrested for "driving with a suspended driver's license" (that is not even mine) and distorting my good name. Through these actions, the BMV has backed me into a corner with no clear way out. These false statements that are being made about me have truly put me under significant stress, so much so that I find it hard to concentrate on work, I have heart palpitations, and I am still facing the same issues as I did a year ago. There seems to be no end.

You say in your letter that the BMV needs to preserve records in order to enforce Indiana law. Regardless of what law the BMV is trying to satisfy, the BMV has absolutely no authority under federal law to do to me what it is doing. This is my point of contention. I never provided Indiana with my SSN until forced to provide proof of identity in February 2005. The BMV has decided, incorrectly, that it may simply oppress the citizen of another state without proper cause and irrespective of the civil rights of that individual.

In your own letter, you openly admit to the fact that the BMV has acted negligently. You stated that "there appear to be as many as two other persons impersonating you using Indiana identification cards." How can the BMV be so careless and reckless as to photograph three different people (one arrested already) on, I assume, three different occasions, associate all of them with my SSN, and then be so bold as to say that the state must keep those erroneous records with my SSN attached to them and publish them to law enforcement and other government agencies when the state knows that it has made this error?

I completely understand the need to keep some form of documentation associated with the ID number issued to the ID cards. However, there is absolutely no valid reason to keep my SSN tied to those records. By doing so, the state of Indiana has brought about this very ugly situation. Why is it so hard to correct an error and disassociate my SSN from the records maintained by the BMV?

What's worse, the BMV has known about this problem since 2002! During a time when ID Theft is on the rise and citizens have enough trouble trying to clear up issues with creditors, etc., the state of Indiana only compounds the problem and, in my view, is the worst perpetrator. It took me merely 6 weeks to clear up my credit report with public companies. It has now been 4 years and the state of Indiana insists on maintaining and publishing false information about me. Can you not see that this is just wrong?

Your suggestion in the letter to simply get a new SSN is absurd. Let me explain why. There are literally hundreds of companies, educational institutions, and government agencies that have my SSN. To change my SSN would require a huge amount of time and cause all kinds of confusion. I do not want to have problems trying to get an old college transcript one day, simply because I change my SSN. In the past 4 years since the ID theft occurred, I have not had a single problem, except for the actions taken and the results incurred by the Indiana BMV. I do not believe that, just because of the negligent actions of one state agency somewhere, that I should have to turn my life upside-down in order to get it back into order.

And finally, I am threatened by the BMV. I am threatened to be prosecuted "vigorously to the fullest extent of the law". And for what? Do not tell me that I have harassed or threatened employees: I do not do that and have not done so. I am contacting the employees, including you, because it is necessary in order to resolve the problem.

I demand that proper action be taken to address this very serious issue. The BMV can stand on its side and I will stand on mine: that does not get us anywhere. I am not threatening when I say that I will take the matter to court and that it will be expensive: I expect that to be the case. This is unfortunate and, in my opinion, the BMV should be taught a lesson and should pay me restitution for time, pain, suffering, anguish, distress, and frustration that I have gone through over the past year. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that my heart has undergone too much stress as a consequence of this and I feel like I'm on the verge of a heart attack every time I start thinking on this issue.

No government agency, and most especially one state agency that is misusing my personal information without my authority or the authority of the Federal Government, should have the power to do what it is doing and to cause the damage it has caused me. For what you have said in this letter, I have lost another day of work. This is ludicrous.

For the benefit of those not copied on the exchanges, I have recorded the conversation here:
http://www.arid.us/silverman/

Best Regards,
Paul E. Jones
1003 Patterson Grove Rd.
Apex, NC 27502
Tel: +1 919 413 8682 (M)
http://www.arid.us/people/paulej/