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COPYRIGHT 2007 Financial Times Ltd.
(From CNN News)
TUCKER: Legitimate or not, the credit card companies hold almost uncheck power over consumers. MICHAEL DONOVAN, ATTORNEY: Gentlemen, the credit card is one of the only credits throughout the common law of the United States and the common law of any country in which the superior bargaining entity has the right to change its terms at anytime. (END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER (on camera): Last year, consumers paid $17 billion in late fees alone. Lou, to put that in perspective, that's 10 times the amount the credit cards collected only a decade ago. DOBBS: Well, the Senate is taking a look at this. Last year the credit card companies -- actually 2005, the credit card companies wrote the bankruptcy law of 2005. Does this suggest that the Senate's actually going to do something about it?
TUCKER: Today, Senator Dodd was content to put them on notice, Lou. Saying you need to clean up your own act or we're going to step in it and do it for you. And at the moment, not committed to going any further than that. DOBBS: OK. Bill Tucker, thank you. There are new proposals to protect working Americans from having their identities stolen by illegal aliens and others. Identity theft, of course, is one way that illegal aliens obtain Social Security numbers so that they can work in the United States. They use those stolen numbers to meet company hiring requirements. I'm joined now by the author of new legislation to stop identity theft. Senator Wayne Allard from Colorado, Republican, good to have you here. SEN. WAYNE ALLARD, (R) CO: Thank you, Lou. It's good to be with you. DOBBS: I know you got involved after the raids on the Swift meat packing plant, six states, including your own, Colorado. What made you get involved?
ALLARD: Well, first of all, it's a major employer in the State of Colorado. I've always been involved in agricultural issues, which I don't think should surprise anybody, since I'm a veterinarian and very close to the agricultural industry. And also was concerned at the rate of the Swift & Companies and how it was that the raid came about and how it was conducted, how it affected both employees as well as employers, and in talking with the Secretary Chertoff of homeland security, he informed me there's no sharing of information between the Social Security Administration and Homeland Security when they're trying to do identification investigations. So I.D. thefts are being rampant out this and they're not sharing that information between the various agencies like Congress expected. DOBBS: Now you sound, if I may say senator, like you sort of are concerned about the company they're hiring on all of those illegal aliens in six states. Are you saying that ICE should have done something differently there as well?
ALLARD: No, I think ICE did a great job. And I support what ICE did. But what I'm concerned about is stolen IDs and what is happening is these individuals whose ID gets stolen, it might be used a number of times simultaneously throughout the country and they don't find out about it until later on. DOBBS: But, senator, many people insist on calling those folks undocumented workers. They have got all of the documents in the world. They're just fraudulent. Let me ask you this ... ALLARD: They are just not their documents. DOBBS: Exactly. And the idea that government agencies are not cooperating, the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and DHS, that can be overcome by your legislation?
ALLARD: Well, it can...
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