Intelligent eCommerce Responds to Allegations Filed By EPIC

ENCINITAS, CA – Intelligent eCommerce, Inc. (IEI) today responded to a complaint filed on July 7 with the FTC by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). A review of FTC complaints reveals EPIC has a history of filings which apparently sensationalize their agenda in the media, says IEI.

IEI believes its services are helpful to people in many ways. IEI helps people by connecting those who seek information to private investigators via the web portal bestpeoplesearch.com. IEI is a conduit between clients and private investigators. IEI does not, nor would not, intentionally sell the services of licensed private investigators known to obtain information by illegal means. IEI abides by the law.

Law enforcement, private investigators, attorneys and many industry experts contend that cell phone and landline based call records help parents locate missing and runaway children; help solve crimes; bail bondsman locate fugitives; insurance companies refute fraudulent claims; collection agencies track down deadbeats; financial institutions locate people and collateral; and yes, spouses find out if their significant other is being faithful or cheating. Call record retrieval does not cause identity theft or heinous crimes. It is a necessary product that has been aiding the investigation industry for decades. IEI does not know of any specific law that prevents private investigators from obtaining and selling call records. When pretexting for financial records became illegal all of the private investigators used by IEI stopped offering them. Had they not stopped offering any service that was deemed “illegal,” IEI would not offer such services.

In the words of 10th U.S. Circuit Court Judge Deanell Tacha: “Although we may feel uncomfortable knowing that our personal information is circulating in the world, we live in an open society where information may usually pass freely.” “A general level of discomfort from knowing that people can readily access information about us does not necessarily rise to the level of a substantial state interest for it is not based on an identified harm.”

Heather MacDonald, who is a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute, in her article titled “What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us,” explains how if a system had been in place in 2001 for rapidly accessing commercial and government data, the FBI’s intelligence investigators could have located every single one of the 9/11 team once it learned in August 2001 that al-Qaida operatives Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq al-Hazmi, two of the 9/11 suicide pilots, were in the country. (http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_what_we_dont_know.html)

David Brin, Ph.D., astrophysicist and renowned author, in his book, “The Transparent Society,” discusses how our civilization achieved one great knack that no other ever managed — empowering citizens to hold the mighty accountable. He explains how history shows that blinding the mighty is generally a futile endeavor. Instead, freedom tends to thrive when citizens are empowered and when everybody has access to information. Freedom thrives when there is openness and accountability.

In speaking of the value of the First Amendment, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”