IDENTITY THEFT UPDATE

The No. 1 state for identity theft is Arizona, where one in six adults has had his or her identity stolen in the past five years. Why? Blame it on two things, according to Javelin Strategy and Research, a private research firm that conducted the study:(1) A large number of methamphetamine users in the state.(2) A decision by local governments to post public records on the Internet. This is how bad it is in Arizona: Identity theft there is double the national average. And it's being fueled by meth addicts. James Van Dyke, president of Javelin, calls it a "supply-chain effect." Van Dyke told ABC News reporter Leslie Yeransian, "Meth users will take your bills in the mail and sell your bank statements as a form of payment. Then the [meth-]maker will use those bank statements to go into an existing account or make a new account off that information or sell your statements to an identity theft specialist."The police admit that methamphetamine use and identity theft are a tightly linked problem. "Every time we find a meth lab, we also find identity theft," Detective Tony Morales of the Phoenix Police Department told ABC News. "These meth freaks like to hang together, and they learn about identity theft tricks together."How are the meth addicts getting such sensitive data? They aren't just stealing it out of dumpsters or your mailbox. Often, they are getting it from the government--with a click of a mouse on the Internet. That's especially true in Arizona where counties put very private information on very public Web sites for the convenience of county employees. Two treasure troves for ID criminals are divorce decrees and tax liens. Still, Van Dyke says the greatest risk to innocent people is the old-fashioned paper trail. "They should be more worried about documents going through the mail. We found in our research that only 9 percent of identity theft can be traced to Internet use and billing," he told ABC News. "If you follow normal precautions on the Internet you are actually better off than using mail."Top five states for identity theft:1. Arizona 2. Nevada 3. California 4. Texas 5. Colorado