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Via Bamboozled: Breakwater Beach security breach puts hundreds of employee documents online by Karin Price Mueller, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, July 9, 2015:

Hundreds of documents containing personal information of some employees at Jenkinson's Breakwater Beach Waterpark at Casino Pier in Seaside Heights have been available online to anyone who clicks in the right place, Bamboozled has learned.

The documents include copies of Social Security cards, driver's licenses, birth certificates, passports, student IDs, tax forms, seasonal work agreements, minor consent forms and employment eligibility forms from the Department of Homeland Security.

..."In a word, 'Wow,'" said Mitch Feather of Creative Associates, a Madison-based cybersecurity firm after reviewing the web site. "This is a case that everything is here for somebody to do an impersonation."

...Earlier this week, (Peter) Heimlich checked the Breakwater Beach site...(and) came across the personnel information.

"It couldn't have been easier (to find)" he said.

...We asked Feather, the cybersecurity expert, to take a look at the site before it was shut down.

"The site had exposed a treasure-trove of information," Feather said.

He said anyone could take the documentation and set up loans, health insurance and more, all in a victim's name.

Feather said cyber incidents like these should be reported to the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell (NJCCIC) at www.cyber.nj.gov/report, or you can email njccic@cyber.nj.gov.

Last week I sent the following identical requests to that agency and to the NJ Attorney General's Division of Consumer Affairs.

The Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a Chicago-area nonprofit that has been the subject of dozens of critical media reports since November 2006 and which is now the subject of federal and state investigations, became a member organization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in January 2003.



On September 17, 2009, after SALF founder/president Carol Spizzirri filed for voluntary dissolution as an Illinois corporation, her organization went belly-up. 

Just weeks before, per these records I obtained last week via a Freedom of Information Act request, Spizzirri's organization was dumped by FEMA.

Note that Spizzirri mentions me in her August 1, 2009 last gasp letter to FEMA, dated about a month after her organization withdraw its failed nuisance lawsuit filed against me and others. (Per a Cincinnati newspaper report, that "case was widely viewed as having the potential to set a precedent involving First Amendment protections for online commentary.")








Since mid-2010, SALF has reportedly been under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded SALF about $3.33 million. In November 2010, the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services recommended that CDC review the role of SALF's corporate treasurer, CDC executive Douglas R. Browne.

SALF received no funds from FEMA.

As for Spizzirri - who, according to the San Diego Reader, once "was a darling of politicians and bureaucrats, although it was a matter of record that she had been convicted twice for shoplifting" - she's now living in a mobile home park in San Marcos, California.

6/18/11: From On Second Thought by Ben Kaufman, Cincinnati CityBeat's media critic:

(Anthony M. Bennett, disclosure branch chief of the Department of Homeland Security wrote) to Peter M. Heimlich, who was pursuing the cozy relationship between federal officials and funding of the dubious Save-A-Life Foundation. Because it’s the latest entry in my “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” file, I will quote Bennett’s exercise in critical thinking a couple weeks ago:

"This letter pertains to your (Peter Heimlich’s) Jan. 20, 2010, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Federal Emergency Management Agency...By a letter dated March 19, 2010, we advised you of the estimated fee of $410.00 for processing your FOIA request. Because the estimated fee exceeded $250.00, we required an advance payment of the estimated fee for us to continue processing your request. We also advised you in that letter that if payment was not received within 14 business days, we would consider your request withdrawn. To date, we have not received your payment. As a result, we are administratively closing this case.

"Additionally, please be advised that because we have not received a payment of $410.00, we will not process any future requests you submit to this office. Moreover, in accordance with 6 C.F.R. 5.11(g), we may charge interest on any unpaid bill starting on the 31st day following the date of this letter. Interest charges will be assessed at the rate provided in 31 U.S.C. 3717 and will accrue from the date of the billing, in this case March 19, 2010, until payment is received by FEMA.

"FEMA shall follow the provisions of the Debt Collection Act of1982, as amended, and its administrative procedures, including the use of consumer reporting agencies, collection agencies, and offset. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this matter, please feel free to contact this office..."

Click here to view a copy of Dr. Bennett's March 31, 2011 letter.

Kaufman's publishing date coincided with the following correspondence:
my 4/18/11 inquiry/response to Dept. of Homeland Security

4/18/11 apology from Homeland Security 

While I'm pleased to get an apology from DHS and to once again be permitted to file FOIA requests with that agency, during the course of this dust-up, I took a closer look at 6 C.F.R. 5.11, cited in Dr. Bennett's letter. That's the section in DHS's FOIA guidelines which governs fees.

This caught my eye (emphasis added): 

(l) Payment of outstanding fees. The Department shall not process a FOIA request from persons with an unpaid fee from any previous FOIA request to any Federal agency until that outstanding fee has been paid in full to the agency.

In other words, if you owe a fee to another federal agency, for example, the Department of the Navy, DHS can refuse to fill your FOIA request.

Some Googling led to an interesting preliminary result. DHS appears to be the only federal agency whose FOIA guidelines include this cross-agency right to deny which in effect allows DHS to play the role of collection agency for any other branch of the government: "Want us to fill your FOIA? Not until you settle your bill with the Department of ____________."

I'm doing some snooping and if anything interesting turns up, I'll post the results.