Lawsuit Filed Against ChoicePoint in Connection with Identity Theft Scam
COSTELLO: Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:14 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning. President Bush has been meeting with the leader of Slovakia this hour. He's scheduled to meet with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, later today in Slovakia. The two are expected to sign agreements on nuclear security and anti-terrorism. There is a new development in the death of a pregnant Texas woman and her young son. The business partner of Stephen Barbee, the man charged in the killings, has now been arrested. Police are holding Ronald Dodd on a parole violation while they decide whether more charges are warranted. In money news, Apple is expanding its iPod line to include more memory. The company is introducing a six gigabyte version of the popular digital music player. They're also dropping the price of their original four gigabyte model. In culture, the late Ray Charles has reached number one on the Billboard charts. After winning eight Grammys, sales of his last album, "Genius Loves Company," jumped more than 200 percent. And in sports, Villanova held on down the stretch to conclude a 76-70 upset over third ranked Boston College. It's the Wildcats' fourth win over a top 25 team this season. It's just the second loss of the year for B.C. -- Chad.</s>MYERS: And only five days until March, Carol. Waiting for the madness. Good morning, everybody.</s>COSTELLO: A California woman is the first person to file suit against the data collection company ChoicePoint. Tens of thousands of people may have been compromised by identity theft with the company. Technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg has more for you.</s>DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The fallout from a massive identity theft scam is still being felt by consumers across the country. It involves a company called ChoicePoint, and if you haven't heard of it, you still could be affected by it. They're a data mining service and basically they scour public records, including Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, military records, the purchases you've made, the homes you've bought. And they gather all that information together, about 19 billion different records. And then third party businesses are able to access it, legitimate ones, and get that information to possibly approve a home loan or to give someone a job. Now, in this case, the thieves posed as legitimate businesses, but they didn't even have to break in the door or get through the security at ChoicePoint. They posed as legitimate businesses and were able to obtain the records of 145,000 people across the U.S. Now, despite ChoicePoint's best efforts to keep their records secure, they still fell into the wrong hands. But it didn't involve breaking in.</s>JAMES LEE, MARKETING DIRECTOR, CHOICEPOINT: This was not a hacking. This was not what we traditionally think of as a failure of a security system to protect an actual network. This was bright, smart people who were engaging in business fraud. Business fraud is big business in our economy today and no one is immune to it, including us.</s>SIEBERG: Of course, the irony is that ChoicePoint's point is to help reduce fraud. Now, these 145,000 people must worry if they could be the victim of an identity thief. They are also going to be sending out letters. ChoicePoint is sending out letters to the people who may have been affected by this to let them know and to alert them. And the company's CEO spoke to one of our affiliates, WXIA, about the possibility of any monetary compensation to the victims of identity theft.</s>DEREK SMITH, CEO, CHOICEPOINT: At this point, we really don't know how many consumers' identities have been compromised. But we will take a look at it and see what we can do to help those consumers as they come forward if, in fact, their identities have been compromised. We don't have a specific proposal to put in place today, but I think what people are seeing, we tried to address it as quickly and as effectively as we can, and that we will look at doing the right thing as we go forward.</s>SIEBERG: So you're not ruling out the possibility of some monetary help to these folks who are going to get stuck, perhaps, spending money to get their situations straightened out.</s>SMITH: Right. We're not ruling out anything at this point in terms of what we would do.</s>SIEBERG: Of course, it's important to keep track of your credit reporting information and to follow up on that at all times; also to think about where your personal data and personal information could be stored or shared -- back to you.</s>COSTELLO: Thank you, Daniel. What about you? Think you're safe from something like that? We'll see if you're ripe for a scam in the next hour of DAYBREAK when we talk with a reporter from "Money" magazine. There will also be a quiz for you to take to see if you are, you know, if you can be fooled by scammers. Time now to check our DAYBREAK "Legal Briefs." The selection of eight alternates in the Michael Jackson trial is expected to begin today. It took just a few days to pare down the more than 240 prospective jurors to the final 12. Of the regular jurors already chosen, eight are women and they're all mothers. There are no African-Americans on the panel. The defense has rested in the Robert Blake murder trial without the mercurial actor ever taking the stand. Jurors were shown a videotaped interview with Blake. He talks about his daughter Rosie that he had with his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley. The key live witness on the final day was Blake's adult daughter, who legally adopted Rosie. Kobe Bryant will answer questions under oath for the first time since he was accused of rape in 2003. Lawyers for his accuser will sit down for a seven hour session with Bryant on Friday. The civil suit against Bryant could go to trial as early as this summer. And the man accused of stalking Anna Kournikova will have to stay far away from her. William Lepeska cannot go within 1,000 yards of Kournikova. He faces 30 years in prison for two counts of battery on police officers. Lepeska also admitted stalking Scary Spice of The Spice Girls before turning his attention to Kournikova. There is a lot more ahead on DAYBREAK. Preemptive talk aimed at nuclear nations -- the president says all options on the table. And guess who's coming to dinner? Martha Stewart is about to get out of prison. Find out what's next for her. You are watching DAYBREAK for Thursday, February 24.