Free Republic

1.6 billion records stolen in Acxiom case, prosecutors say LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A Florida man was convicted Friday of stealing information from data-management company Acxiom Corp. in what prosecutors said was the largest federal computer theft trial ever. The jury convicted Scott Levine, the owner of defunct e-mail marketing contractor Snipermail.com, on 120 counts of unauthorized access to data, two counts of access device fraud and one count of obstruction of justice. Jurors cleared Levine of 13 counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer, one conspiracy count and one count of money-laundering.

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday announced a 144-count indictment against a Florida businessman for allegedly hacking personal information on millions of Americans from Acxiom Corp. databases over a 17-month period. Prosecutors claimed that Scott Levine, 45, of Boca Raton, Fla.-based Snipermail.com Inc., accessed Acxiom databases between April 2002 and August 2003. Information accessed included names, addresses, e-mail addresses, customer demographics, and probably some birth dates and social security numbers. “It may be the biggest cyber-crime ever prosecuted and investigated,” said assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra Cherry during a news conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Little Rock office. It alleges 139 instances...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A Florida man has been charged with stealing large amounts of consumer information from Acxiom Corp., one of the world's largest database companies. The new indictment comes on the heels of a separate case last year in which an Ohio man pleaded guilty to hacking into an Acxiom server. Acxiom manages personal information on millions of consumers, along with financial and other internal data for companies. The new case, against Scott Levine, 45, represents "what may be the largest cases of intrusion of personal data to date," U.S. Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray said...

<p>A computer hacker gained access to private files at Acxiom Corp., one of the world's largest consumer database companies, and was able to download sensitive information about some customers of the company's clients, the company said Thursday.</p> <p>"The data on the servers was a wide variety of information, some of which was personal, some of which was not," Jennifer Barrett, the company's chief privacy officer, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. The AP was notified of the intrusion by an anonymous caller who would not identify himself or his connection with the company.</p>

<p>Several federal agencies are using the personal data of U.S. citizens to pinpoint terrorist activity, a practice that a secretive Pentagon program was pursuing before Congress axed its funding amid fears it would be used to spy on Americans.</p> <p>Congress killed the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project to create a supercomputer and sift through the private information of U.S. citizens, calling it a vast violation of privacy.</p>

A patron walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender asks to see some ID. Without asking permission, the barkeep swipes the driver's license through a card reader and the device flashes a green light approving the order. The bartender is just verifying the card isn't a fake, right? Yes, and perhaps more. Visitors to an art exhibit at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts got more than their martinis when they ordered drinks at a bar inside the gallery's entrance. Instead of pretzels and peanuts, they were handed a receipt containing the personal data found on their...

Military Background Augmented Success as Lobbyist Who Could Open Doors Wesley K. Clark could not keep quiet for long. The meeting with Vice President Cheney on July 16, 2002, had started with casual banter. But the retired four-star general quickly cut off the chitchat, grasping his chair and sliding it next to Cheney's. "Mr. Vice President, we know you only have a short time, and we have some very important matters to discuss," Clark said, according to a person who attended the session. "So if you don't mind, I'd like to just jump into the meeting." Cheney nodded, and Clark...

By the end of the Democratic presidential debate on Thursday night, it was impossible to avoid the question: Was Wesley Clark trying to hurt himself? Or had the retired four-star general simply not considered the possibility that debate moderators would ask him, like, questions? Consider Clark's response to a query about the lobbying work he did in 2002 and 2003 for an Arkansas-based company called Acxiom. The software firm has developed a product called CAPPS II, which is an airline screening system that gathers information on passengers and color-codes them according to their potential terrorist risk (the name stands for...

HUDSON - Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark vowed last night to work on preserving software jobs from going overseas to lower-wage countries such as India. “We will retain the software industry in this country, it’s that simple,’’ Clark told more than 300 people jammed into the Alvirne High School cafeteria. Clark said he would pursue changes in the tax code to punish companies that outsource skilled jobs and encourage firms that expand employment here. The retired Army general said he would also extend a “Buy America’’ initiative to include intellectual property and block the U.S. sale of software that has...

A Cincinnati man who plead guilty Thursday to cracking and cloning giant consumer databases was only caught because he helped out a friend in the hacker community. Daniel Baas, 25, plead guilty Thursday to a single federal felony count of "exceeding authorized access" to a protected computer for using a cracked password to penetrate the systems of Arkansas-based Acxiom Corporation -- a company known among privacy advocates for its massive collection and sale of consumer data. The company also analyzes in-house consumer databases for a variety of companies. From October, 2000 until last June, Baas worked as the system administrator...

Wesley Clark’s presidential campaign and Acxiom Corp. disagree on whether the campaign paid for the use of a corporate airplane in time to meet federal election-law requirements. Their differing accounts involve $11,133.50 that the campaign paid to fly an Acxiom jet Sept. 18 — the day after Clark announced his run for president. The plane carried Clark, members of his staff, news reporters and two Acxiom employees to Florida and back. The Federal Election Commission requires presidential campaigns to pay for the use of corporate aircraft before a flight, the fee to be based on the price of first-class...

""Who tried to negotiate a pipeline deal with the Taliban AFTER they blew up the buddhas and forced jews to wear stars of David? Who goes and works for Halliburton and the Carlyle Group when they leave office (or continue working for them while in office)? …Who has blocked and prevented any After Action Review as to what happened on 9/11? Who tried to block the creation of a Department of Homeland Security? Who has not fired or brought to accountability a SINGLE PERSON for the intelligence failure that led to 9/11? But the most important question of all -...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – October 9, 2003 – Acxiom® Corporation (Nasdaq: ACXM) today announced that retired U.S. Army General Wesley K. Clark has resigned from the Acxiom Board of Directors, effectively immediately. The Company said Clark originally had hoped to fulfill his duties as a Company Director but that the growing demands of seeking the U.S. presidency had made that impractical. Acxiom Chairman Charles D. Morgan offered deep gratitude to Clark for his many contributions to the board. Clark had resigned his role as a consultant for Acxiom the day he announced his presidential campaign. Clark had been a member...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential newcomer Wesley Clark, struggling to pull his fledgling White House campaign together, will flesh out details of his political views in four major policy speeches over the next month. As the nine contenders for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination gathered in Phoenix on Thursday for their fourth debate, three companies -- Acxiom Corp., Entrust Inc. and the privately held WaveCrest Laboratories -- announced that Clark had resigned from their boards. Clark was examining all his corporate ties, campaign spokeswoman Kym Spell said. A four-star Army general and former NATO commander, Clark jumped into the top...

After the Army, Clark signs up as businessman Doors open for retired general Retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s business resume reads as if it belongs to an upwardly mobile executive who’s had his nose to the grindstone for three decades. In the three years since he left the Army, Clark has signed on as an adviser or director with more than half a dozen companies, written two books, worked as a CNN pundit and launched a campaign to become president of the United States. The common denominator: He was working with a government he knows inside out. The information that...

<p>October 1, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Democratic front-runner Wesley Clark joined the campaign two weeks ago, but he remains a registered Washington lobbyist, The Post has learned. Clark's continuing registration as a hired gun for Acxiom, a Little Rock information-storage firm that hired him for $150,000 per year, was ripped by one good-government expert who said it "doesn't smell particularly good."</p>

WASHINGTON - When two Russian immigrants and their American financial backer needed marketing help for their innovative electric motor, they turned to a merchant banker at one of the nation's largest investment houses - retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark. The meeting at the Washington office of Stephens Inc. in late 2001 proved fortuitous for both Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO, and the principals in WaveCrest Laboratories, at the time a small research and development company in Dulles, Va. "They hit it off pretty much right away," said WaveCrest spokesman Tom McMahon. Clark signed on as a consultant...

Security Aide Prods Airlines to Yield Data on Travelers By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 ? Needing information on airline passengers for a test of the government's new computerized screening system, the Transportation Security Administration, rebuffed by JetBlue Airways, is looking for a substitute that can provide it, the agency's administrator said today. But the official, Adm. James M. Loy, said that because no one airline wanted to single itself out as the provider, he hoped to get the data from the industry as a whole. And if he cannot get the airlines' cooperation, he said, he will simply...

Clark Worked For Ark. Data FirmAcxiom Role Part of Surveillance Debate By Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 27, 2003; Page A08Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark helped an Arkansas information company win a contract to assist development of an airline passenger screening system, one of the largest surveillance programs ever devised by the government. Starting just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Clark sought out dozens of government and industry officials on behalf of Acxiom Corp., a data powerhouse that maintains names, addresses and a wide array of personal details about nearly every adult in the...

Little Rock’s Acxiom Corp. has spent most of the two years since the attacks of Sept. 11 looking for government contracts to help fight the war on terror. It has found the contracts. Now it has a fight on its hands. The data-management company is involved in a growing dispute over the release of information on millions of airline passengers to a Defense Department contractor last year. Acxiom sold that contractor demographic data on roughly 2 million airline passengers — about 40 percent of those involved — as part of its role in the war on terror. As a...

LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Acxiom Corp. didn't violate anyone's privacy rights when it gave information it accumulated on thousands of airline passengers to an Alabama company that was preparing an anti-terrorism study for the Defense Department, an Acxiom spokesman said Tuesday. The Little Rock-based data management company said it followed "applicable laws" and its own privacy policy in doing business with Torch Concepts of Huntsville, Ala. Torch Concepts produced the study, "Homeland Security: Airline Passenger Risk Assessment," with information from Acxiom and JetBlue Airways Corp. at Queens, N.Y. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit privacy group, filed a...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A group of passengers has sued JetBlue Airways Corp. for passing their personal information to a Defense Department contractor. The suit, filed Monday, follows JetBlue's acknowledgment last week that, in violation of its own privacy policy, it had given information from about 5 million passenger records to Torch Concepts of Huntsville, Ala. Torch produced a study, "Homeland Security: Airline Passenger Risk Assessment," that was purported to help the government improve military base security. The class-action lawsuit, filed in Utah's 3rd District Court, alleges fraudulent misrepresentation, breach of contract and invasion of privacy. Also on...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — Two federal agencies announced today that they had opened investigations into JetBlue Airways in response to the airline's admission that it had provided travel records on more than a million passengers to a Pentagon contractor, violating its own privacy rules. The moves by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission came as JetBlue disclosed that it had hired Deloitte & Touche, the accounting firm, to review the company's privacy policies and determine if they needed to be revamped. The fast-growing three-year-old airline, which is based in New York and has worked to...

Before the Federal Trade Commission Washington, DC In the Matter of JetBlue Airways Corporation and Acxiom Corporation.Complaint and Request for Injunction, Investigation and for Other Relief INTRODUCTION1. This complaint concerns the privacy practices of JetBlue Airways Corporation and Acxiom Corporation. As set forth in detail below, JetBlue Airways Corporation and Acxiom Corporation have engaged in deceptive trade practices affecting commerce by disclosing consumer personal information to Torch Concepts Inc., an information mining company with its principal place of business in Huntsville, Alabama, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 45(a)(1). JetBlue Airways Corporation and Acxiom Corporation engaged in these activities...

Wesley Clark, the former Army General who announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on Sept. 17, has not given up his board memberships, according to published accounts. Since retiring from the military in 2000, Clark has held a variety of industrial positions, including jobs with a Washington, DC-based technology firm, an investment company, and director or advisor positions with six other organizations. In most cases he was brought on board to assist with military or government contracts. One such company is Acxiom Corp., the Little Rock, AR-based data firm. Clark joined Acxiom in December 2001, and played a...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 — JetBlue Airways acknowledged publicly today that it had provided a Pentagon contractor with information on more than one million of its passengers as part of a program to track down terrorists and other "high risk" passengers. That data, which was turned over in violation of the airline's own privacy policies, was then used to identify the passengers' Social Security numbers, financial histories and occupations. JetBlue, a three-year-old discount airline, sent an e-mail message to passengers this week, conceding that it had made a mistake in providing the records last year to Torch Concepts, an Army...

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the Little Rock native and former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, has resigned as managing director of merchant banking for the Stephens Group Inc. of Little Rock effective Friday, a company spokesman confirmed. "He told several of us that his first assignment would be to Kuwait City for CNN," Stephens spokesman Frank Thomas said. "It was a very amicable parting, very comfortable." Clark couldn't be reached for comment Friday morning. He joined Stephens in July 2000, the same month he retired from the Army. He serves on the boards of directors of Acxiom...

WASHINGTON - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark will participate in the Democratic presidential debate next week, party officials said Thursday. Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Debra DeShong said Clark's campaign confirmed that he will be at the party's debate on economic issues next Thursday in New York City. Clark was scheduled to give a paid speech on Thursday, the day the nine other candidates were scheduled to participate in the debate that will be broadcast live on CNBC. His aides had said he may have to miss the debate to honor his commitment. He was criticized by rival campaigns, who said Clark...