The Federal Trade Commission staff seeks comments by February 25th on the security freeze, the PIRG-backed solution to identity theft. The staff are responding to a goal of an identity theft task force strategic plan to study the possibility of a federal freeze law. Following a joint PIRG/Consumers Union campaign that has resulted, so far, in 39 states and DC enacting security freeze legislation, the credit bureaus themselves have rolled out clunky, over-priced plans for the remainder of the country. The fight now will be over whether any federal freeze is slow and clunky or, worse, would take away the longstanding right of the states to protect their citizens from identity theft and other harms. Here's a blog entry with a lot more background on the history of the security freeze.

Remember-- over-priced credit bureau Privacy Guard and other subscription-based ($8-15/month) credit monitoring services do not stop the issuance of credit to id thieves. Neither does the federal fraud alert. Only the freeze blocks access to your credit report, effectively preventing the issuance of credit to a thief.

That's why the bureaus have rolled out their own clunky, slow and expensive freeze. They want people to stick with their over-priced services that don't work rather than switching to the lower cost service that works. If they don't make it easy to use, people won't use it and they can argue to the FTC that the freeze is a last resort that people do not like.

The credit bureaus' strategy is clear-- they want to override the strong state laws that apply to any consumer and replace them with an industry-approved, clunky federal law that only could be used by previous victims. (Yes, that has been their federal position.) As we often say, that is like saying you cannot have a seatbelt until you've already been in a car crash. Even Delaware, the home to many a bank, has passed a law that has only a one-time fee and is fast and easy to use, pleasing merchants, credit unions and consumers. Why a one-time fee and no fees for temporarily unfreezing your report? You buy a lock for your door, but do you pay again every time you lock and unlock it? Why fast and easy-to-use? So neither merchants nor consumers are inconvenienced by credit bureau bureaucracy.