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How Did ChoicePoint Identity Scam Work?; Tips on Dealing with Identity Theft; Man Convicted in Pizza Shop Assault

Aired February 23, 2005 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


RICK SANCHEZ, CO-HOST: Finally, the skies are starting to clear up. This, after seven straight days of rain. So much rain, in fact, that Los Angeles now has its third wettest season on record. Residents have been forced out of dozens of homes that are teetering on muddy hillsides.
Also, a military jury in Germany just last hour convicted two British servicemen of abusing Iraqi prisoners. The court-martial stemmed from an incident near Basra in May of 2003, when Iraqi civilians looted a warehouse. Photos showed the detained Iraqis posed in humiliating positions. Some were forced to simulate section acts.

The latest book by Pope John Paul II goes on sale in Italy today. It covers a wide range of issues from communism to terrorism, to abortion and gay marriage. "Memory and Identity" also includes the pope's account of the moments after he was shot back in 1981.

DARYN KAGAN, CO-HOST: Consumer groups are angry with good reason. They are demanding the federal government step in with tough oversight of data collection companies, companies like ChoicePoint.

It gathers and sells information on you, your credit, your medical, legal and criminal history, in some cases, even your DNA. Scammers apparently duped ChoicePoint and got the files of 145,000 people.

We want to talk right now to -- we will be talking to a consumer advocate about identity theft. We'll do that in a moment. First, though, how'd they do it? Technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg to tell us how ChoicePoint and how the scam worked.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And just because you haven't heard of ChoicePoint, and most people hadn't until this incident occurred, doesn't mean you weren't affected.

And scam is really the right word for it. ChoicePoint is basically a data mining service. That means they're scouring public records to find all those purchases you make, the homes you buy, your credit card information, your military record, your Social Security number, you name it.

ChoicePoint has about 19 billion records. The company gathers and sorts it and then allows businesses, insurance companies, and other authorized third parties to access it for a fee. Might be to approve a home loan or to get a job. But the thieves in this case didn't even need to get in the door. You see, the security there at the ChoicePoint offices, for a year, these thieves posed as legitimate businesses and obtained the records of 145,000 people across country. Now, despite ChoicePoint's best efforts to keep records secure, they fell into the wrong hands, but it didn't involve breaking in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES LEE, 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIEBERG: Of course, the irony is that ChoicePoint's point is to help reduce fraud. Now these 145,000 people must worry about the possibility of identity theft.

ChoicePoint has sent letters to those people who were affected. And the company says you should receive one within the next 10 days if you've been the victim of this scam. And of course, it's important to look through all of your mail, because this really could easily go unnoticed.

KAGAN: Right. And so many questions about it. First of all, ChoicePoint says you can check your credit report, you can do this, do that. If that happens to me, I'm a little bit more ticked than that. Is the company doing anything else to say it's sorry?

SIEBERG: Well, that's an interesting point. Because the company has said that they're not ruling out any sort of monetary compensation. The CEO came out and said that, that they could possibly reimburse people for any expenses they incur because their identity was stolen.

Now there's nothing conclusive there. They'd have to wait and see how many people were exactly affected. At this point, we've heard hundreds of people. So it could be much more than that.

KAGAN: I'm also wondering, if I go back a few steps, how does a company like ChoicePoint even get all those -- all that information about you and me to start with?

SIEBERG: It's startling to think that all of this information is out there about you. I mean, they really are going out there and discovering this information that is out there. It's public record. It's purchases you make. It's places that you go to buy something. It's personal information about you: your driver's license number, your Social Security number.

Now, of course, they're only meant to give it to authorized third parties. I actually did a search on myself, not with ChoicePoint, but with another company called Abeca (ph), a very similar type of thing. It's a data broker, a data mining service.

KAGAN: And what did you find out about yourself?

SIEBERG: I found out everything about myself, that I've been in the U.S., full disclosure, for about five years. And they had everything on me and I was able to find it out.

Now, of course, I did that search on myself, so I'm hoping I'm an authorized third party. But that information could possibly fall into the wrong hands. So...

KAGAN: Can anybody do that with these companies?

SIEBERG: They can. Each of these companies promise a different way of allowing that information to be handed out and to be screened. But of course if your information is stolen in some way, it's only California that requires a company like that to say, your information may have been stolen.

KAGAN: Guess who's knocking at the door?

SIEBERG: Yes, oversight and regulations are a big part of this story, and I think that's going to be encouraging. That's what's going to come out of this is looking closer at these companies.

KAGAN: Very good. Daniel Sieberg, thank you.

SIEBERG: All right.

SANCHEZ: All right, guys. Let's pick up on what you guys were just talking about, because there's help on the way.

You know what you can do now? You can actually freeze your credit. You can get a security freeze. That's what it's called. How does it work? Well, I'm not the expert, but we do have someone who can explain this to us.

Let's talk now to Gail Hillebrand. She's in San Francisco. She's a "Consumer Reports" magazine and a senior attorney at Consumers Union. It's the magazine's publishing arm.

Interesting, the whole idea of the freeze is to not allow anybody else to be able to tap into your security, in other words, to be able to get into your credit. The only way that they're going to be able to get into your credit is if they have a particular set of numbers. Just like when you go to the ATM machine.

Let's talk to Gail about this. How's the freeze going to work, Gail?

GAIL HILLEBRAND, SENIOR ATTORNEY, CONSUMERS UNION: A security freeze allows you, the consumer, to decide when to lock up your credit file. It prevents new creditors from looking at your credit file, unless you reopen your file for them, in particular with a password or a PIN. It doesn't prevent the thief from stealing your information from one of these companies like ChoicePoint, but it allows you to lock up your credit file so the thief can't pretend to be you and get credit in your name.

SANCHEZ: Let's back up here just a little bit so viewers know why this is necessary. If someone steals you, Gail's, identity, or mine, what's the first thing that they're going to do with it?

HILLEBRAND: Probably the first thing they're going to do is go to a brand-new creditor that we've never dealt with, pretend to be one of us and try to get credit in our names, using our good credit history to get the creditor to give them an account. Then they'll charge it up and not pay it, and six months or nine months later we'll start getting calls from collection agencies.

SANCHEZ: Exactly. So the idea with this is, when that person makes that phone call to another creditor and says, "Guess what? I want a new credit card and my name is Gail Hillebrand or Rick Sanchez," they're going to say, "What's your PIN number, please?" And they're going to go, "Ooh, I don't have that." Right?

HILLEBRAND: Close. The creditor will try to check the credit record and at that point, the credit girl will say, "I'm sorry are there's a freeze on this. Please ask the consumer to lift the freeze." And since it's not you, you won't be willing to do that for the thief.

SANCHEZ: But the only way...

HILLEBRAND: ... end of discussion.

SANCHEZ: ... to unfreeze is it with a PIN number?

HILLEBRAND: That's correct and the consumer has control over who gets to see the file, because the consumer decides when to unfreeze it.

SANCHEZ: Of course, since everyone's been hacking and getting into everything else, and that's what the whole conversation is about, is there a fear that they'll be able to get the PIN number, as well, in the future?

HILLEBRAND: Well, I think there's always a possibility some piece of information can be gotten. But this is a number the consumer would have in control. And at least in the 12 states that are now considering security freeze laws, consumers would get this new right to be in charge of deciding who gets to look at their files.

SANCHEZ: Let's ask you a question I'm sure some people at home are thinking. All right. Let's suppose I put a freeze on my credit, and my security is frozen, as we've been talking about.

But tomorrow, I want to go buy a car. I want to get a house. I want to get a new credit card. What do I have to do now to legitimately be able to do that without someone like yourself saying, "Sorry, this account is frozen?"

HILLEBRAND: You would use your pin to remove the freeze altogether or you could use it to open it for a particular period of time.

A security freeze works best for consumers who are not about to take out a loan. So if you're not about to refinance your house or buy a new car, you have all the credit cards you need, as most of us do, that's the consumer who might choose to put on a freeze.

SANCHEZ: Now this system is going to be in four states pretty soon, and I understand, what, 11 others are considering it, right? What do you think the timing is going to be on this thing? Is it going to move forward?

HILLEBRAND: You have the right now, in California. Starting July 1, you'll have it in Vermont and Louisiana. Texas is also coming online this year. I think we're going to see these state bills start to move.

If you'd like to know if there is a security freeze bill in your state legislature, we have a list posted at FinancialPrivacyNow.org.

SANCHEZ: What do you do between now and then to protect yourself from having something happen like what happened when Daryn and Dan were talking about with ChoicePoint?

HILLEBRAND: There are two categories of things you can do. One is just protecting the information so no one can steal it from you. And that has to do with making -- getting your Social Security number out of your wallet, making sure that you're not recycling your credit card statements, asking your credit card company to stop sending you those convenience checks that can be stolen in the mail.

You should also read all your statements very carefully. And if you see anything that looks not right or you're getting mail from a creditor you've never heard of, you need to follow up on that in writing.

SANCHEZ: Excellent. It's called security freeze, once again. Gail, we're about out of time on this. So thanks so much for joining us and bringing us up to date on this thing. It could be real exciting for a lot of people. Appreciate it.

HILLEBRAND: You're welcome.

KAGAN: Just when you think you've seen everything today out of California. You haven't seen this.

Video we're getting in from Moorpark, California. This is near the L.A./Ventura County line. It appears to be a large exotic cat. Yes, it appears to be a tiger. A massive orange cat, black stripes, appears to have been a tiger. It's been shot and killed in a rural area of Moorpark. This exotic cat had been seen roaming the hills above Ronald Reagan's presidential library over the holiday weekend.

SANCHEZ: That's not native to California. That's not one of those mountain lions they have out there. This is like a...

KAGAN: No, and Moorpark is one of these areas that used to be, you know, very rural, and more and more homes are going in that area. It could be that there was somebody who was keeping exotic animals...

SANCHEZ: As a pet.

KAGAN: ... in the area. But sad, the tiger shot and killed.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

KAGAN: And now being airlifted out of that area.

SANCHEZ: As if they needed more news out there.

KAGAN: We will get more on that, the tiger mystery. A lot more news coming up, as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Time for our "Daily Dose" of health news. The envelope please. It's award season. Some teens are singling out celebrities who smoke on the big screen. Details from our senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For those of you who can't wait for the glitz and glamour of the Academy awards...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The nominees for the best tobacco free film are...

GUPTA: ... there's the tenth annual Hackademy Awards. Here, it's not about lighting up the silver screen. It's about lighting up, period. California teens gave the thumbs up and the thumbs down awards to movies and actors to draw attention to entertainment's focus on puffing out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's an ashtray or smoking in almost every scene. It was outrageous. Way too much smoking.

GUPTA: Fifty-eight percent of America's teenagers say they have tried cigarettes, and one out of five say they are hooked on their smoking habit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smoking in films, it also -- it reinforces this perception that smoking has benefits, you know, when we see someone grabbing for a cigarette when they're stressed out in a film.

GUPTA: A study in the journal "Pediatrics" found that kids who watch R movies, most of which have smoking scenes, are one-third more likely to start smoking than those who don't.

In case you're wondering, a winner of this year's thumbs up award, Cate Blanchett in "The Aviator" for her smoke-free portrayal of Katharine Hepburn, who was hardly ever seen without a smoke.

Another anti-smoking winner, "Mean Girls," which explored the toxic side of high school life but let left out the tar sticks depicted in many other teen movies.

And the recipient of a thumbs down award?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Anchorman."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you don't have parents that smoke, if you don't have peers that smoke, we still have to be concerned about this media influence, because this is also sending a message about whether or not smoking is acceptable and how -- how common it is.

GUPTA: So what can parents do to keep their kids from taking a drag? Don't smoke yourself. Statistics show kids with smoking family members who don't quit pick it up themselves. Talk about cigarette smoking with your kid. And even choosing your movies wisely may have an impact.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And of course, we always want to remind you that your "Daily Dose" of health news is always just a click away. You can log on to CNN.com/health for the very latest medical news. And you're also going to find some special reports and something you can use, a health library.

KAGAN: Well, it was supposed to be a quick trip to pick up some pizza.

SANCHEZ: Supposed to be.

KAGAN: Yes, that was the plan. Instead a verbal confrontation -- watch this -- leads to violence. We're not making this stuff up. Why it happened and what it ended up with, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: The shooting of the alleged tiger in Southern California, we have more information now, and we can show you the pictures once again. Officials aren't confirming that this is a tiger. But you look for yourself. That looks like a pretty big tiger to me.

This took place in Moorpark, very close to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Now before you ask why they had to shoot the cat, apparently they've been tracking it for a number of days. He was shot a quarter of a mile from state highway 73, several hundred yards away from soccer and baseball fields, at the edge of a housing development.

They've been tracking this cat ever since they had seen several sets of paw prints far too large for native bobcats or mountain lions. Found on a ranch not far from the hilltop library early last week. They think this animal weighed between 400 and 600 pounds.

Now whose tiger it was, how it got loose, that part we don't know yet. But the tiger shot in Moorpark. That's near the L.A. County/Ventura County line.

SANCHEZ: That's close to a baseball field.

KAGAN: Baseball field, kids playing, housing development.

SANCHEZ: Sounds reasonable.

KAGAN: Hungry tiger and playing children, not a good combination.

SANCHEZ: Let's go to this story now. About four years ago in Akron, Ohio, some guys in a pizza shop were waiting, they say, patiently to place an order. Suddenly, a woman walks in. Then, as Gary Libitor (ph) of CNN affiliate WJW explains, that's when the problems began.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY LIBITOR (ph), WJW REPORTER (voice-over): Several people wait in line at DaVinci's Pizza. A woman comes in, looks at the crowd and proceeds to go right to front of the line. A man in the middle of the line gets a call from his girlfriend.

JOE SCARPINO, CUSTOMER: She asked me what happened, what was taking so long. I said, "Well, it's going to take a little longer now. Somebody just jumped in front of us."

She goes, "Who?"

I said, "Some lady wearing camouflage." And she overheard it, and that's when it all broke out and started.

LIBITOR (ph): The woman who cut in line proceeds to get into this guy's face. She then goes outside and comes back in. The employee tries to calm her down, and she spits on him.

He goes after her, but then the woman's 300-pound boyfriend comes in. The employee then retreats back behind the counter. And she continues to go at the guy in line, actually hits him in the face using a racial slur.

SCARPINO: She wanted to get loud and jump up in my face, and I told her I don't hit women.

PRESINA SIMS, CUSTOMER: Let's go, yes, you, (expletive deleted).

SCARPINO: I guess I kept on getting hit. The only thing I remember, really, was having my hands out in front of me. But by that time, you know, they probably hit me five or six more times.

LIBITOR (ph): This, while each and every person in the place stands by and watches.

SCARPINO: I had a cerebral concussion, a fractured tooth, a broken nose.

LIBITOR (ph): Joe Scarpino says some of the pain to his head is still there, and he still gets headaches.

SIMS: Yes, you (expletive deleted).

LIBITOR (ph): A jury has found Mark Jones guilty of felonious assault. He'll now spend the next four years in prison.

SCARPINO: If the video wasn't there, I think he would have got off quite a bit lighter, you know, because there was really no actual cuts or anything on me. He didn't break skin. Everything was sort of internal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: That's Gary Libitor's (ph) report. One does begin to wonder what the rest of all those people in there were thinking or doing or were they just afraid to somehow get involved? Now, we do have some more -- I know, it's tough to watch, isn't it?

KAGAN: Well, they should be put in prison. They were just standing there. The only one trying to pull the guy off was the girlfriend, who started it in the first place, the spitting and...

SANCHEZ: Standing, but at some points they were almost, like, moving out of the way.

KAGAN: Yes. The only smart one was the pizza clerk who went behind the counter. Like, oh, no, no, no.

SANCHEZ: We do have a little bit of caveat to this story. The boyfriend has been sentenced to four years as you heard.

KAGAN: We know that.

SANCHEZ: The woman involved, though, Presina Sims, she's now reportedly facing charges, as well.

KAGAN: All right then. Well, and they got the tape.

SANCHEZ: And that's what made the prosecution.

KAGAN: Yes. How about these pictures coming up? Tennis stars Andre Agassi and Roger Federer could have used a bigger net. Look at where they're playing. This is Dubai. They were hitting groundstrokes 700 feet above ground level in Dubai. The helipad of the exclusive Burj Al Arab Hotel was turned into a tennis court for publicity. Agassi and Federer are competing in the Dubai Open. They said they loved playing tennis up there. And there wasn't much argument about when they hit one out.

Yes, out is out.

SANCHEZ: Yes, you can't miss. If you miss, it's gone.

KAGAN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Wolf Blitzer is going to be coming up in just a little bit. He's going to tell us all about the news of the day, as well.

Thanks so much for being with us. I'm Rick Sanchez.

KAGAN: I'm Daryn Kagan. We'll see you tomorrow morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired February 23, 2005 - 11:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CO-HOST: Finally, the skies are starting to clear up. This, after seven straight days of rain. So much rain, in fact, that Los Angeles now has its third wettest season on record. Residents have been forced out of dozens of homes that are teetering on muddy hillsides.
Also, a military jury in Germany just last hour convicted two British servicemen of abusing Iraqi prisoners. The court-martial stemmed from an incident near Basra in May of 2003, when Iraqi civilians looted a warehouse. Photos showed the detained Iraqis posed in humiliating positions. Some were forced to simulate section acts.

The latest book by Pope John Paul II goes on sale in Italy today. It covers a wide range of issues from communism to terrorism, to abortion and gay marriage. "Memory and Identity" also includes the pope's account of the moments after he was shot back in 1981.

DARYN KAGAN, CO-HOST: Consumer groups are angry with good reason. They are demanding the federal government step in with tough oversight of data collection companies, companies like ChoicePoint.

It gathers and sells information on you, your credit, your medical, legal and criminal history, in some cases, even your DNA. Scammers apparently duped ChoicePoint and got the files of 145,000 people.

We want to talk right now to -- we will be talking to a consumer advocate about identity theft. We'll do that in a moment. First, though, how'd they do it? Technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg to tell us how ChoicePoint and how the scam worked.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And just because you haven't heard of ChoicePoint, and most people hadn't until this incident occurred, doesn't mean you weren't affected.

And scam is really the right word for it. ChoicePoint is basically a data mining service. That means they're scouring public records to find all those purchases you make, the homes you buy, your credit card information, your military record, your Social Security number, you name it.

ChoicePoint has about 19 billion records. The company gathers and sorts it and then allows businesses, insurance companies, and other authorized third parties to access it for a fee. Might be to approve a home loan or to get a job. But the thieves in this case didn't even need to get in the door. You see, the security there at the ChoicePoint offices, for a year, these thieves posed as legitimate businesses and obtained the records of 145,000 people across country. Now, despite ChoicePoint's best efforts to keep records secure, they fell into the wrong hands, but it didn't involve breaking in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES LEE, 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIEBERG: Of course, the irony is that ChoicePoint's point is to help reduce fraud. Now these 145,000 people must worry about the possibility of identity theft.

ChoicePoint has sent letters to those people who were affected. And the company says you should receive one within the next 10 days if you've been the victim of this scam. And of course, it's important to look through all of your mail, because this really could easily go unnoticed.

KAGAN: Right. And so many questions about it. First of all, ChoicePoint says you can check your credit report, you can do this, do that. If that happens to me, I'm a little bit more ticked than that. Is the company doing anything else to say it's sorry?

SIEBERG: Well, that's an interesting point. Because the company has said that they're not ruling out any sort of monetary compensation. The CEO came out and said that, that they could possibly reimburse people for any expenses they incur because their identity was stolen.

Now there's nothing conclusive there. They'd have to wait and see how many people were exactly affected. At this point, we've heard hundreds of people. So it could be much more than that.

KAGAN: I'm also wondering, if I go back a few steps, how does a company like ChoicePoint even get all those -- all that information about you and me to start with?

SIEBERG: It's startling to think that all of this information is out there about you. I mean, they really are going out there and discovering this information that is out there. It's public record. It's purchases you make. It's places that you go to buy something. It's personal information about you: your driver's license number, your Social Security number.

Now, of course, they're only meant to give it to authorized third parties. I actually did a search on myself, not with ChoicePoint, but with another company called Abeca (ph), a very similar type of thing. It's a data broker, a data mining service.

KAGAN: And what did you find out about yourself?

SIEBERG: I found out everything about myself, that I've been in the U.S., full disclosure, for about five years. And they had everything on me and I was able to find it out.

Now, of course, I did that search on myself, so I'm hoping I'm an authorized third party. But that information could possibly fall into the wrong hands. So...

KAGAN: Can anybody do that with these companies?

SIEBERG: They can. Each of these companies promise a different way of allowing that information to be handed out and to be screened. But of course if your information is stolen in some way, it's only California that requires a company like that to say, your information may have been stolen.

KAGAN: Guess who's knocking at the door?

SIEBERG: Yes, oversight and regulations are a big part of this story, and I think that's going to be encouraging. That's what's going to come out of this is looking closer at these companies.

KAGAN: Very good. Daniel Sieberg, thank you.

SIEBERG: All right.

SANCHEZ: All right, guys. Let's pick up on what you guys were just talking about, because there's help on the way.

You know what you can do now? You can actually freeze your credit. You can get a security freeze. That's what it's called. How does it work? Well, I'm not the expert, but we do have someone who can explain this to us.

Let's talk now to Gail Hillebrand. She's in San Francisco. She's a "Consumer Reports" magazine and a senior attorney at Consumers Union. It's the magazine's publishing arm.

Interesting, the whole idea of the freeze is to not allow anybody else to be able to tap into your security, in other words, to be able to get into your credit. The only way that they're going to be able to get into your credit is if they have a particular set of numbers. Just like when you go to the ATM machine.

Let's talk to Gail about this. How's the freeze going to work, Gail?

GAIL HILLEBRAND, SENIOR ATTORNEY, CONSUMERS UNION: A security freeze allows you, the consumer, to decide when to lock up your credit file. It prevents new creditors from looking at your credit file, unless you reopen your file for them, in particular with a password or a PIN. It doesn't prevent the thief from stealing your information from one of these companies like ChoicePoint, but it allows you to lock up your credit file so the thief can't pretend to be you and get credit in your name.

SANCHEZ: Let's back up here just a little bit so viewers know why this is necessary. If someone steals you, Gail's, identity, or mine, what's the first thing that they're going to do with it?

HILLEBRAND: Probably the first thing they're going to do is go to a brand-new creditor that we've never dealt with, pretend to be one of us and try to get credit in our names, using our good credit history to get the creditor to give them an account. Then they'll charge it up and not pay it, and six months or nine months later we'll start getting calls from collection agencies.

SANCHEZ: Exactly. So the idea with this is, when that person makes that phone call to another creditor and says, "Guess what? I want a new credit card and my name is Gail Hillebrand or Rick Sanchez," they're going to say, "What's your PIN number, please?" And they're going to go, "Ooh, I don't have that." Right?

HILLEBRAND: Close. The creditor will try to check the credit record and at that point, the credit girl will say, "I'm sorry are there's a freeze on this. Please ask the consumer to lift the freeze." And since it's not you, you won't be willing to do that for the thief.

SANCHEZ: But the only way...

HILLEBRAND: ... end of discussion.

SANCHEZ: ... to unfreeze is it with a PIN number?

HILLEBRAND: That's correct and the consumer has control over who gets to see the file, because the consumer decides when to unfreeze it.

SANCHEZ: Of course, since everyone's been hacking and getting into everything else, and that's what the whole conversation is about, is there a fear that they'll be able to get the PIN number, as well, in the future?

HILLEBRAND: Well, I think there's always a possibility some piece of information can be gotten. But this is a number the consumer would have in control. And at least in the 12 states that are now considering security freeze laws, consumers would get this new right to be in charge of deciding who gets to look at their files.

SANCHEZ: Let's ask you a question I'm sure some people at home are thinking. All right. Let's suppose I put a freeze on my credit, and my security is frozen, as we've been talking about.

But tomorrow, I want to go buy a car. I want to get a house. I want to get a new credit card. What do I have to do now to legitimately be able to do that without someone like yourself saying, "Sorry, this account is frozen?"

HILLEBRAND: You would use your pin to remove the freeze altogether or you could use it to open it for a particular period of time.

A security freeze works best for consumers who are not about to take out a loan. So if you're not about to refinance your house or buy a new car, you have all the credit cards you need, as most of us do, that's the consumer who might choose to put on a freeze.

SANCHEZ: Now this system is going to be in four states pretty soon, and I understand, what, 11 others are considering it, right? What do you think the timing is going to be on this thing? Is it going to move forward?

HILLEBRAND: You have the right now, in California. Starting July 1, you'll have it in Vermont and Louisiana. Texas is also coming online this year. I think we're going to see these state bills start to move.

If you'd like to know if there is a security freeze bill in your state legislature, we have a list posted at FinancialPrivacyNow.org.

SANCHEZ: What do you do between now and then to protect yourself from having something happen like what happened when Daryn and Dan were talking about with ChoicePoint?

HILLEBRAND: There are two categories of things you can do. One is just protecting the information so no one can steal it from you. And that has to do with making -- getting your Social Security number out of your wallet, making sure that you're not recycling your credit card statements, asking your credit card company to stop sending you those convenience checks that can be stolen in the mail.

You should also read all your statements very carefully. And if you see anything that looks not right or you're getting mail from a creditor you've never heard of, you need to follow up on that in writing.

SANCHEZ: Excellent. It's called security freeze, once again. Gail, we're about out of time on this. So thanks so much for joining us and bringing us up to date on this thing. It could be real exciting for a lot of people. Appreciate it.

HILLEBRAND: You're welcome.

KAGAN: Just when you think you've seen everything today out of California. You haven't seen this.

Video we're getting in from Moorpark, California. This is near the L.A./Ventura County line. It appears to be a large exotic cat. Yes, it appears to be a tiger. A massive orange cat, black stripes, appears to have been a tiger. It's been shot and killed in a rural area of Moorpark. This exotic cat had been seen roaming the hills above Ronald Reagan's presidential library over the holiday weekend.

SANCHEZ: That's not native to California. That's not one of those mountain lions they have out there. This is like a...

KAGAN: No, and Moorpark is one of these areas that used to be, you know, very rural, and more and more homes are going in that area. It could be that there was somebody who was keeping exotic animals...

SANCHEZ: As a pet.

KAGAN: ... in the area. But sad, the tiger shot and killed.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

KAGAN: And now being airlifted out of that area.

SANCHEZ: As if they needed more news out there.

KAGAN: We will get more on that, the tiger mystery. A lot more news coming up, as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Time for our "Daily Dose" of health news. The envelope please. It's award season. Some teens are singling out celebrities who smoke on the big screen. Details from our senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For those of you who can't wait for the glitz and glamour of the Academy awards...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The nominees for the best tobacco free film are...

GUPTA: ... there's the tenth annual Hackademy Awards. Here, it's not about lighting up the silver screen. It's about lighting up, period. California teens gave the thumbs up and the thumbs down awards to movies and actors to draw attention to entertainment's focus on puffing out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's an ashtray or smoking in almost every scene. It was outrageous. Way too much smoking.

GUPTA: Fifty-eight percent of America's teenagers say they have tried cigarettes, and one out of five say they are hooked on their smoking habit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smoking in films, it also -- it reinforces this perception that smoking has benefits, you know, when we see someone grabbing for a cigarette when they're stressed out in a film.

GUPTA: A study in the journal "Pediatrics" found that kids who watch R movies, most of which have smoking scenes, are one-third more likely to start smoking than those who don't.

In case you're wondering, a winner of this year's thumbs up award, Cate Blanchett in "The Aviator" for her smoke-free portrayal of Katharine Hepburn, who was hardly ever seen without a smoke.

Another anti-smoking winner, "Mean Girls," which explored the toxic side of high school life but let left out the tar sticks depicted in many other teen movies.

And the recipient of a thumbs down award?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Anchorman."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you don't have parents that smoke, if you don't have peers that smoke, we still have to be concerned about this media influence, because this is also sending a message about whether or not smoking is acceptable and how -- how common it is.

GUPTA: So what can parents do to keep their kids from taking a drag? Don't smoke yourself. Statistics show kids with smoking family members who don't quit pick it up themselves. Talk about cigarette smoking with your kid. And even choosing your movies wisely may have an impact.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And of course, we always want to remind you that your "Daily Dose" of health news is always just a click away. You can log on to CNN.com/health for the very latest medical news. And you're also going to find some special reports and something you can use, a health library.

KAGAN: Well, it was supposed to be a quick trip to pick up some pizza.

SANCHEZ: Supposed to be.

KAGAN: Yes, that was the plan. Instead a verbal confrontation -- watch this -- leads to violence. We're not making this stuff up. Why it happened and what it ended up with, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: The shooting of the alleged tiger in Southern California, we have more information now, and we can show you the pictures once again. Officials aren't confirming that this is a tiger. But you look for yourself. That looks like a pretty big tiger to me.

This took place in Moorpark, very close to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Now before you ask why they had to shoot the cat, apparently they've been tracking it for a number of days. He was shot a quarter of a mile from state highway 73, several hundred yards away from soccer and baseball fields, at the edge of a housing development.

They've been tracking this cat ever since they had seen several sets of paw prints far too large for native bobcats or mountain lions. Found on a ranch not far from the hilltop library early last week. They think this animal weighed between 400 and 600 pounds.

Now whose tiger it was, how it got loose, that part we don't know yet. But the tiger shot in Moorpark. That's near the L.A. County/Ventura County line.

SANCHEZ: That's close to a baseball field.

KAGAN: Baseball field, kids playing, housing development.

SANCHEZ: Sounds reasonable.

KAGAN: Hungry tiger and playing children, not a good combination.

SANCHEZ: Let's go to this story now. About four years ago in Akron, Ohio, some guys in a pizza shop were waiting, they say, patiently to place an order. Suddenly, a woman walks in. Then, as Gary Libitor (ph) of CNN affiliate WJW explains, that's when the problems began.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY LIBITOR (ph), WJW REPORTER (voice-over): Several people wait in line at DaVinci's Pizza. A woman comes in, looks at the crowd and proceeds to go right to front of the line. A man in the middle of the line gets a call from his girlfriend.

JOE SCARPINO, CUSTOMER: She asked me what happened, what was taking so long. I said, "Well, it's going to take a little longer now. Somebody just jumped in front of us."

She goes, "Who?"

I said, "Some lady wearing camouflage." And she overheard it, and that's when it all broke out and started.

LIBITOR (ph): The woman who cut in line proceeds to get into this guy's face. She then goes outside and comes back in. The employee tries to calm her down, and she spits on him.

He goes after her, but then the woman's 300-pound boyfriend comes in. The employee then retreats back behind the counter. And she continues to go at the guy in line, actually hits him in the face using a racial slur.

SCARPINO: She wanted to get loud and jump up in my face, and I told her I don't hit women.

PRESINA SIMS, CUSTOMER: Let's go, yes, you, (expletive deleted).

SCARPINO: I guess I kept on getting hit. The only thing I remember, really, was having my hands out in front of me. But by that time, you know, they probably hit me five or six more times.

LIBITOR (ph): This, while each and every person in the place stands by and watches.

SCARPINO: I had a cerebral concussion, a fractured tooth, a broken nose.

LIBITOR (ph): Joe Scarpino says some of the pain to his head is still there, and he still gets headaches.

SIMS: Yes, you (expletive deleted).

LIBITOR (ph): A jury has found Mark Jones guilty of felonious assault. He'll now spend the next four years in prison.

SCARPINO: If the video wasn't there, I think he would have got off quite a bit lighter, you know, because there was really no actual cuts or anything on me. He didn't break skin. Everything was sort of internal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: That's Gary Libitor's (ph) report. One does begin to wonder what the rest of all those people in there were thinking or doing or were they just afraid to somehow get involved? Now, we do have some more -- I know, it's tough to watch, isn't it?

KAGAN: Well, they should be put in prison. They were just standing there. The only one trying to pull the guy off was the girlfriend, who started it in the first place, the spitting and...

SANCHEZ: Standing, but at some points they were almost, like, moving out of the way.

KAGAN: Yes. The only smart one was the pizza clerk who went behind the counter. Like, oh, no, no, no.

SANCHEZ: We do have a little bit of caveat to this story. The boyfriend has been sentenced to four years as you heard.

KAGAN: We know that.

SANCHEZ: The woman involved, though, Presina Sims, she's now reportedly facing charges, as well.

KAGAN: All right then. Well, and they got the tape.

SANCHEZ: And that's what made the prosecution.

KAGAN: Yes. How about these pictures coming up? Tennis stars Andre Agassi and Roger Federer could have used a bigger net. Look at where they're playing. This is Dubai. They were hitting groundstrokes 700 feet above ground level in Dubai. The helipad of the exclusive Burj Al Arab Hotel was turned into a tennis court for publicity. Agassi and Federer are competing in the Dubai Open. They said they loved playing tennis up there. And there wasn't much argument about when they hit one out.

Yes, out is out.

SANCHEZ: Yes, you can't miss. If you miss, it's gone.

KAGAN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Wolf Blitzer is going to be coming up in just a little bit. He's going to tell us all about the news of the day, as well.

Thanks so much for being with us. I'm Rick Sanchez.

KAGAN: I'm Daryn Kagan. We'll see you tomorrow morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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