Snip from a report in The Arcata Eye, a local newspaper covering the community of Arcata, California:
On August 10, after his family was refused a home loan, an Arcata man was mortified to find the phrase "son of Saddam Hussein" included on his credit report.
"I looked at it and couldn't believe my eyes!" Said the Arcata man who asked that only his middle name, Hassan, be divulged.
The routine credit check, pulled by the Arcata family's prospective mortgage company, lists the alleged alias under the section titled "Borrower Bureau Alert Information:"
"HASSAN ALIASES: AL-TIKRITI, ALI SADDAM HU.S.SEIN DOB: 1980 ALT (ALTERNATE) DOB: 1983; POB: IRAQ; NATL: IRAQI; SON OF SADDAM HU.S.SEIN AL-TIKRITI…"
A partial name match to the individual listed on the Arcata man's credit report, "Hassan" is the man's middle name, but any likeness to the description of Hussein's son ends there.
(…)
According to Shirin Sinnar from the San Francisco branch of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, credit bureaus are listing the names of known terrorists on the credit reports of unsuspecting everyday, average citizens across the country. Sinnar indicated the names are harvested from the U.S. Treasury Watchlist by credit bureaus and other financial institutions.
"The credit reporting agencies are now scanning this list and putting watchlist information on the reports even if it's a partial match," said Sinnar.
