Files with personal
information found buried in Converse
park
12/05/2006 08:16 AM CST
Thousands of pieces of personal
information — a gold mine in this
age of identity theft — was found
buried in a park in Converse.
But it's what city officials decided
to do with it those files that is
raising some eyebrows and has some
wondering if they have a reason to
be worried.
Last week a contracting crew hired
to do flood control work at the
Converse North Park stumbled upon
bundled-up piles of buried treasure,
if you want to steal someone's
identity.
"Drivers license (numbers). Social
Security (numbers). Lot of
photographs. All the information
you'd ever want if you were going to
do any kind of fraud," said David
Meyer, who is part of the crew that
discovered the files.
Also found buried in the park were
police reports, traffic tickets and
even ironically a ticket for
littering.
"It's been exposed for about a
week," Meyer said.
Converse City Manager Sam Hughes did
not want to go on camera but says
the city never envisioned that all
those files, which were buried in
1998, would ever be accidentally dug
up.
In 1998, it was perfectly legal to
bury that kind of paperwork, but the
state law was changed five years
ago.
And while routine paperwork can
still be buried all personal
information has to be burned,
recycled or shredded.
Monday morning the city sent in at
least half a dozen dump trucks to
haul out all of the buried files.
But it's where the files were sent
that's concern some people. The
files were sent straight over and
buried at the other city park in
Converse.
"People getting personal
information, they could clean your
bank account out, and ruin your good
name, quick," said Chris Ochoa.
What many want to know is if
Converse broke the law by reburying
those files with personal
information.
Hughes told Eyewitness News even
he's not so sure if they city broke
the law, but says much of the
information was pretty waterlogged.
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