SCARIEST SNOOP:

Derek V. Smith / CEO, ChoicePoint

Derek V. Smith, CEO of the information broker ChoicePoint,

spends plenty of time at the Golf Club of  Georgia not far from his home in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, where helives with his wife Lisa and their three kids.

When Smith isn’t being a regular suburban family guy he’s doing his bit to keep the whole country safe .

How? By selling your private data.

ChoicePoint makes its money by compiling, buying, and selling personal information, including

Social Security numbers,

arrest records, 

credit reports,

purchase histories

 and

DNA samples.

Though the government and law enforcement are big clients, they aren’t the only customers responsible forpushing ChoicePoint’s revenue above $1 billion last year. 

Smith sells your data to insurance companies and potential employers doing background checks as well. 

 Also,

in a big“oops” moment last year,

he sold the personal data of 163,000people to an alleged crime ring.

(The Federal Trade Commission subsequently fi ned the company $15 million).

You can’tpay attention to things like background checks on customers when you’re stopping terrorism, OK? And Smith, 51, aims to stop a lot of terrorism.

He’s the government’s go-to guy because ChoicePoint has worked out a neat end-run around the legal limits placed on personal data law enforcement can collect without a court order.

For instance,

 instead of getting a judge’s permission to spy on everybodynamed Mahmoud in Atlanta,

 the feds can just buy the records from ChoicePoint,

including everything fro m home addresses to their targets’ preferred Safeway stores .

Plus,

ChoicePoint is aggressively beefi ng up its vast data banks.

It absorbed Database Technologies,

 the very company that provided the inaccurate felon voter list that prevented tens of thousands of minorities from voting in Florida during the disputed 2000 election. 

 But don’t worry.

Your loss of privacy and anonymity is all part of what it means to be free.