This is "old" news from April, but with identity theft hitting the news, as one corporation after another shares your darkest financial secrets with pretty much anybody, I thought you'd want to know what they've come up with in the great State of Ohio.

In Ohio it's the state that may steal your identity, and does!

According to the AP,

Supporters of Ohio's identity theft law are livid that state liquor control agents gave a college student the driver's license and Social Security number of another woman so she could pose as a stripper for a sting.
....

Nasal [the Miami County prosecutor] said the ploy was legal because a change in Ohio's law the previous year aimed at curbing identity theft. The law allows police to use a person's identity within the context of an investigation, he said.

And the tactics were justified because authorities managed to close the club, Nasal said.

"I don't apologize for the investigation and the conduct," he told The Columbus Dispatch for a story Sunday. "The result speaks for itself."

Indeed.

According to court records, Troy police paid Michelle Szuhay $100 per night over three months to strip at the club in Troy, a city of about 22,000 north of Dayton.

Szuhay, then a 22-year-old criminal justice major at the University of Dayton, worked as an intern with the U.S. Marshals Service and in a security post with the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. She had also stripped before, Nasal said.

Stripping and law enforcement seem to go hand in hand, or hand in something.

Each night Szuhay danced, the state agents drank beer and watched from seats inside the club, ostensibly looking for violations of liquor laws at the same time.

I have truly missed my calling.

Troy police watched, too, through an Internet account they set up using the identity of a dead man.

I can't imagine how you do that, but I'm willing to try.

"Watching her dance was quite different than the other girls," Troy Capt. Chuck Adams said. "She was doing some things I think she was ashamed of."

What on earth was she doing? She had worked as a stripper before.

The father of the woman whose identity has been overexposed had this to say—

I don't know much about law, but I would say that's just baloney, said Dawson, who lives part time in Columbus.

No, sir. It's not baloney, it's cheesecake.

Bruce Schneier, whose excellent blog on security and security technology brought this story to my attention, had this reaction—

I have to admit that I'm stunned. I naively assumed that the police would have a list of Social Security numbers that would never be given to real people, numbers that could be used for purposes such as this. Or at least that they would use identities of people from other parts of the country after asking for permission. (I'm sure people would volunteer to help out the police.) It never occurred to me that they would steal the identity of random citizens. What could they be thinking?

Well, respect for citizens is not exactly a law-enforcement priority these days, is it?

Related post
Memphis cops are clean! (8/25/04)