100 million stolen American IDs just popped up online — including this Trump official's



Almost nothing is scarier than finding out your privacy has been breached.

One tech reporter found out in the worst way possible.

'We have been continuously exfiltrating new data for over a year into our private database.'

Writer Brian Krebs says he was alerted by a source on Monday that his driver's license had found its way onto the dark web. Even worse, it was being given away as a free sample.

The source told Krebs that a service called Nexus was being advertised on a Russian cybercrime forum, Exploit, which was offering access to digital scans of IDs from an unthinkable number of people in North America.

Krebs wrote, "The source brought it to my attention because the proprietor of this identity theft service offered my Virginia drivers license as a free sample in their initial sales thread on Exploit."

The identity theft archive allegedly contained more than 153 million driver's licenses from North America, along with other identity documents that push the number of stolen IDs to more than 170 million.

After cross-referencing the dates and times listed on the documents of his colleagues, the reporter established that the images were likely being taken from a widely used verification company in Louisiana.

The accused website, idscan.net, told the outlet it was investigating the matter, but "was not able to share any additional information."

The ID of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth allegedly appeared on the website, too, with a price tag of $100 to "purchase" the record.

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Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

"We have been continuously exfiltrating new data for over a year into our private database,' Nexus reportedly wrote. "Records are available to preview before purchase with pertinent information redacted. Customer photos are displayed if available."

Other stolen data on the website purportedly included travel documents, medical cards, marijuana dispensary cards, and more.

Some records had their source as "CDL," likely commercial driver's license, and "CAC," which could refer to government ID cards for Common Access.

Nexus claimed the images were coming from an active breach at a "major identify verification company" that has multiple Fortune 500 companies as customers.

Krebs said his page on the website included six images files, which consisted of infrared and ultraviolet versions of his license. The date and time stamp corresponded to a flight he took in 2025.

RELATED: EU regulators just slapped these top US companies with an invasive new ultimatum

Sonja Flemming/CBS/Getty Images

The report further stated that the FBI's New Orleans field office had launched an investigation into the source of the images.

Blaze Media reached out to the FBI national press office and the New Orleans office to verify the existence of an investigation into the matter, but neither replied.

The website in question appeared to have been taken down since reports circulated.

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Democrat candidate admits he's 'utterly unqualified,' wants a promotion anyway



Matt Dunlap is running as a Democrat for Maine's 2nd Congressional District, claiming to have cut government waste and improved bureaucratic efficiency as Maine secretary of state and state auditor.

His track record tells a different story. After more than two decades in office, Dunlap leaves in his wake an illegal-alien armed robbery scandal, a federal voting lawsuit, a string of missed deadlines, and even flunked exams.

'He’ll be held accountable for his failures at the ballot box in November.'

During his first tenure as secretary of state from 2004 to 2011, Dunlap's subordinate Robert O’Connell helped an illegal alien acquire the identification necessary to buy a gun. That alien later used that gun to commit armed robbery.

Back in March 2006, O’Connell, then the Maine DMV’s director of licensing services, met with Irish native Niall Clarke at a Boston bar and discussed getting him a driver’s license in Maine. O'Connell personally expedited Clarke’s application.

The Irishman's visa expired that April. In October 2006, Clarke used a gun purchased with his Maine ID to rob a Bangor Bank of America, making off with over $11,000 before being apprehended by police.

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Brianna Soukup/Portland Portland Press Herald/Getty Images

Dunlap declined to discipline O'Connell after an investigation by Dunlap's office later that year determined that O'Connell had not broken any laws or state policies.

"It probably would be the easy thing to put Bob under suspension, throw him under the bus, but the fact is we have to let the process work," Dunlap said at the time.

Clarke was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison and later deported.

That same year, Dunlap also ran afoul of the federal government. In July 2006, the Department of Justice sued the State of Maine and Dunlap for allegedly neglecting voter registration list maintenance and disability access upgrades for polling places.

Maine had already received $17 million from the federal government to aid in these tasks when the suit was filed. Dunlap blamed a truant vendor for the delay. Though both parties later agreed to resolve the issue via consent decree, the oversight raised concerns about Dunlap’s ability to manage public wealth.

The scandals didn't stop there.

RELATED: When government breaks the law, can you even sue?

JASON REDMOND/AFP/Getty Images

In 2007, local news outlet WGME strolled onto the State Lottery Commission’s property and scooped up numerous discarded records, including citizens’ names, Social Security numbers, birthdates, and other sensitive data. There was enough material there for mass identity theft, according to the outlet.

Despite the alarming exposure of citizens' private information, Dunlap said about the trashed documents, “I think that’s incredibly healthy,” arguing that 10 years earlier, people would have wondered, "What’s the big deal about Social Security numbers in the trash?"

The incident resulted in changes to state document disposal policy, such as mandatory shredding and contracted waste disposal.

Dunlap faced another lawsuit in 2009 after he failed to certify a people’s veto petition that aimed to repeal Democrat then-Governor John Baldacci’s sales tax expansion. Activist group Still Fed Up with Taxes sued after Dunlap’s office blew past the October 13 deadline for signature verification.

Dunlap ultimately relented, and the measure reached the June 2010 ballot. The measure passed, and a judge later ruled that Dunlap’s office had no authority to miss the deadline.

“[Dunlap] said his staff was overworked, neglecting to mention that, instead of checking off names, he’d spent a week of that crunch time at a conference in Kentucky,” the Portland Press Herald reported in 2012.

Dunlap tried to leave his secretary of state scandals behind him in 2021, switching gears to become state auditor. Dunlap admitted he was “utterly unqualified” for the state auditor role, just as he was when he ran for secretary of state in 2004, according to Bangor Daily News.

Dunlap later failed two accounting exams required for the auditor position and stepped down in October 2021. Then-state Senate President Troy Jackson — whom Democrats recently substituted for Graham Platner as their U.S. Senate candidate to run against longtime Sen. Susan Collins (R) — appointed Dunlap to the auditor role in November 2022 after he eventually passed his exams.

"Whether it’s failing to protect Mainers' sensitive information, hold bad actors accountable, or simply do his job properly, incompetent radical Matt Dunlap proved to Mainers time and again that he is not a trustworthy steward of their tax dollars,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Maureen O’Toole told Blaze News. “He’ll be held accountable for his failures at the ballot box in November."

Dunlap did not respond to a request for comment. O'Connell and Clarke could not be reached for comment. Dunlap will square off against former Republican Maine Governor Paul LePage in November's midterm elections.

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18 Voter Fraud Prosecutions Racking Up While Republican-Led Congress Ignores SAVE Act

Every time politicians torpedo needed election reforms like the SAVE America Act they are damaging our republic.

California’s next dumb tech idea: Show your papers to scroll



California has a habit of importing some of the worst tech-regulation ideas from overseas. After lawmakers enacted a censorial statute cribbed from the U.K. in 2022 — and watched it run headlong into an injunction — the Golden State now appears eager to borrow from Australia, which in December barred children from major social media platforms.

Earlier this month, California lawmakers introduced a bill to impose “a minimum age requirement to open or maintain a social media account.” Governor Gavin Newsom (D), who usually avoids weighing in on pending bills, publicly endorsed the idea.

Will America keep light-touch rules that protect consumers without strangling innovation — or import Europe’s heavy-handed, fear-driven approach?

However well intentioned, the Australian model collapses on prudential grounds. In the United States, it also invites a swift constitutional challenge — and likely a swift defeat in court.

Most proposals that force platforms to distinguish between adults and minors require age verification. That means users must hand over sensitive personal information — usually government ID documents or biometric data — as the price of entry to the platforms where everyday digital life happens. Once companies collect, process, and store that data, it becomes a tempting target. Hackers do not need ideology, only opportunity.

The roster of victims reads like Don Giovanni’s catalogue. The list includes corporations such as Target, Equifax, Marriott, Capital One, MGM Resorts, and T-Mobile. Platforms from Facebook to X.com to the “Tea” app were also hit. So were third-party verification services. Even in France, where regulators tried to build a privacy-protective system, a third-party age verifier exposed sensitive user data. In the digital age, breaches and leaks are simply a fact of life.

Legislation promoted as “child protection” thus runs into a basic contradiction: it can expose children to new forms of harm. As the R Street Institute and Experian have reported, 25% of minors will become victims of identity fraud or theft before they turn 18. Age-verification mandates would widen the attack surface and increase the odds that minors’ information gets stolen, misused, or sold — and that families spend years cleaning up the wreckage.

Some advocates now treat constitutional objections to “child-safety” bills as impolite. Courts don’t share that squeamishness. In recent years, judges have enjoined multiple constitutionally defective state laws, leaving behind little more than wasted taxpayer dollars and public frustration, while state attorneys general mount doomed defenses.

Newsom’s favored approach also clashes with a Supreme Court precedent California already lost: Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. In that 2011 case, the court struck down a California law that restricted minors’ access to violent video games. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion applied strict scrutiny — a demanding standard — and rejected the state’s argument that the law simply “helped” parents.

Scalia’s point applies with even greater force here. A sweeping ban on minors’ access to social media would function less as parental support and more as state substitution. The state would not merely empower parents; it would decide what parents should want, then impose that judgment across the board.

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David GRAY/AFP/Getty Images

In American law, parents generally hold the duty — and the right — to decide what media their children consume. That principle does not stop at the edge of the internet.

The broader fight over technology policy often turns on a single question: Will America stick with light-touch, sensible regulation that protects consumers without strangling innovation — or will it import the heavy-handed, fear-driven regulatory posture popular abroad, especially in Europe?

The American technology sector grew and thrived in the internet era. Many foreign regimes, more focused on expansive “safety” mandates than innovation, privacy, or consumer benefit, have not.

Lawmakers should borrow good ideas wherever they find them. But California keeps shopping in the wrong aisle. If Sacramento wants to protect kids, it should start with tools that don’t require building a mass ID-check system for the entire public — and that don’t hand criminals a richer trove of data to steal.

It’s wise to learn from other countries. It’s foolish to copy their worst mistakes.

Digital tyrants want your face, your ID … and your freedom



Thomas Sowell’s warning fits the digital age with brutal precision: There are no solutions, only trade-offs. When governments regulate technology, they seize your privacy first. Every “safety” mandate becomes an excuse to collect more personal data, and the result is always the same. Bureaucrats claim to protect you while making you more vulnerable.

Age-verification laws illustrate this perfectly. Discord’s recent breach — more than 70,000 stolen government ID photos taken from a third-party vendor — shows how quickly privacy collapses once platforms are forced to gather sensitive data.

Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks.

To comply with the U.K.’s new Online Safety Act, Discord began collecting users’ documentation. That data became a target, and once breached, attackers reportedly demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom and threatened to publish the stolen IDs. Discord failed to monitor its vendor’s security practices, and thousands paid the price.

Age-verification mandates require digital platforms to confirm a user’s age before granting access to specific content or services. That means uploading government IDs or submitting to facial scans. The stated goal is child safety. The actual effect is compulsory data surrender. These laws normalize the idea that governments can force citizens to hand over sensitive information just to use the internet.

Centralized data collection creates a jackpot for cybercriminals. As the Discord breach proves, one compromise exposes thousands — or millions — of users. Criminals can sell this information, reuse it for identity theft, or weaponize it for blackmail. The problem isn’t a one-off failure. It is structural. Age verification mandates require platforms to create consolidated databases of personally identifying information, which become single points of catastrophic failure.

The libertarian Cato Institute captures the problem: “Requiring age verification creates a trove of attractive data for hackers that could put broader information about users, particularly young users, at risk.”

Governments may insist that the Discord breach was an outlier. It wasn’t. Breaches of sensitive information are predictable in systems designed to aggregate it. Even if the motives behind the U.K.’s age-verification regime were noble, undermining privacy to advance those aims is a trade-off free societies should reject. That is why the Online Safety Act triggered an outcry far beyond the U.K.

And, as usual, legislative mandates fail to achieve their stated goals. Days after the OSA took effect, VPN downloads surged as users — including children — bypassed verification systems. Laura Tyrylyte, Nord Security’s head of public relations, told Wired that “whenever a government announces an increase in surveillance, internet restrictions, or other types of constraints, people turn to privacy tools.” Predictably, age-verification laws encourage evasion instead of compliance.

RELATED: The UK wants to enforce its censorship laws in the US. The First Amendment begs to differ.

mikkelwilliam via iStock/Getty Images

The pattern is simple: Age-verification laws degrade privacy, heighten the risk of identity theft, and fail to keep minors off restricted platforms. They make the internet less safe for everyone.

Meanwhile, policymakers remain determined to spread these mandates in the name of protecting children. The U.K. pioneered the model. Many other governments followed. Twenty-five U.S. states have adopted similar laws. The list grows each month.

But governments cannot treat data breaches as acceptable collateral damage. Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks. The result of this approach will be more surveillance, more breaches, more stolen personal data, and a steady erosion of civil liberties.

Privacy is the backbone of liberty in a digital world. Thomas Jefferson’s warning deserves repetition: “The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”

Age-verification mandates accelerate that progress — and citizens pay the price.

Legacy Media Goes From Ignoring To Endorsing Illegal Immigrant Crime

Migrants maintain tight-knit networks across the United States

An Illegal Alien Stole An American’s Identity For 15 Years. NYT Says He’s A Victim Too

Every fact in the story underscores the massive cost and toll of illegal immigration.

Trump admin making sure illegal aliens don't get food stamps



The Trump administration is working to eliminate the monetary incentive for foreign nationals to steal into the country and to pressure noncitizens presently exploiting citizen supports to wean off or get packing.

Pursuant to President Donald Trump's Feb. 19 executive order "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders," the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now taking steps to ensure that illegal aliens cannot get their hands on food stamps.

"President Trump has made it clear that American taxpayers will no longer subsidize illegal aliens," USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a Thursday statement.

"We are stewards of taxpayer dollars, and it is our duty to ensure states confirm the identity and verify the immigration status of SNAP applicants," continued Rollins. "USDA's nutrition programs are intended to support the most vulnerable Americans. To allow those who broke our laws by entering the United States illegally to receive these benefits is outrageous."

The USDA issued guidance on Thursday to state SNAP agencies nationwide setting out the minimum expectations for eligibility verification to prevent "ineligible aliens" from participating in the program.

Only American citizens and certain lawfully present noncitizens, including individuals granted asylum, are eligible for SNAP benefits. However, the U.S Government Accountability Office noted in a September 2024 report that an estimated 11.7% or $10.5 billion of SNAP benefits paid out by the USDA in fiscal year 2023 "were the wrong amount or otherwise should not have been made."

The report indicated that "states made improper payments related to SNAP mainly because they did not verify recipients' eligibility for program benefits." States apparently often failed to verify whether recipients were citizens or lawfully present noncitizens.

The Center for Immigration Studies revealed in a December 2023 report that 48% of "illegal-headed households" used food welfare programs.

'Taxpayer-funded benefits should be only for eligible taxpayers.'

As of 2022, American taxpayers were on the hook for at least $182 billion annually to provide services and benefits to illegal aliens and their dependents, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

The new USDA guidance requires state agencies to:

  • verify the identity of the applicant, ideally before confirming their immigration status;
  • collect and verify Social Security numbers for all household members applying for SNAP benefits;
  • compare SSNs to the Social Security Agency's Death Master File database and ensure the SSN belongs to the applicant; and
  • check alien applications against the Department of Homeland Security Systematic Alien Verification System for Entitlements — which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem advised governors last week is now available to states for free — to ensure eligibility.

The guidance provided other recommendations and advised state agencies that the Food and Nutrition Service "will assess the effectiveness of identity and immigration status verification practices in regular management evaluations for program compliance."

The USDA issued the new guidance just a week after Trump issued a memo directing his administration to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving taxpayer funds from Social Security Act programs, including Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Blaze News previously reported that the memo directed the Social Security Administration to expand its fraud prosecutor programs, investigate earning reports of individuals supposedly 100 years or older with mismatched records, consider reinstating its civil monetary penalty program, and reinforce program integrity measures so only eligible foreign nationals can receive benefits.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on April 15, "These taxpayer-funded benefits should be only for eligible taxpayers."

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Deep-staters rage as IRS, DHS consider working together to locate millions of illegal aliens



Deep-staters who yet remain in their federal positions are fuming as the Internal Revenue Service appears ready to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other Department of Homeland Security officials to locate millions of illegal aliens living in the United States, according to multiple reports from the Washington Post.

According to the Washington Post, which spoke with at least six sources familiar with the matter, ICE has basic information on millions of illegal aliens living in the U.S. but wants help from the IRS to confirm that information. Though no formal agreement between the two agencies has been finalized, a draft of an agreement said that the IRS would assist ICE with information requests that:

  • include names, addresses, and other identifying data of illegal aliens already issued a dated final deportation order; and
  • come from DHS Sec. Kristi Noem or acting ICE director Todd Lyons.

While the sources admitted to the Post that federal agencies may share information about taxpayers under limited circumstances that often involve judicial approval, they still caterwauled about the allegedly unprecedented nature of this type of cooperation.

According to a March 22 article from the Post, "The proposed agreement has alarmed career officials at the IRS ... who worry that the arrangement risks abusing a narrow and seldom-used section of privacy law that's meant to help investigators build criminal cases, not enforce criminal penalties."

A follow-up article on Sunday described such IRS officials as "aghast" because DHS now plans to ramp up these information requests. While DHS officials initially indicated that they would seek to cross-reference with the IRS the information of some two million illegal aliens, they expect that number to rise to seven million eventually.

'Some undocumented workers obtain jobs by using fake or borrowed SSNs.'

For decades, the IRS has assured illegal aliens that filing taxes was safe and would not subject them to deportation. The sources who spoke with the Post view this new apparent partnership between the IRS and DHS as violating an understood promise.

"It is a complete betrayal of 30 years of the government telling immigrants to file their taxes," one unnamed IRS official told the outlet.

It also seems to be a sharp reversal from just a few weeks ago. In February, DHS asked the IRS to share the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of 700,000 or so immigrants suspected of living here illegally, but then-acting IRS commissioner Doug O’Donnell declined, claiming doing so would be unconstitutional.

O'Donnell resigned the next day. He was quickly replaced with Melanie Krause, who told her team she expects the IRS to cooperate with efforts from the Trump administration to enforce immigration laws.

"While we have nothing to share regarding any potential discussions, the United States Treasury is fully committed to supporting our partner agencies in executing the President’s America First agenda," a Treasury Department spokesperson told the Post.

Meanwhile, the legacy media continues to trumpet the alleged contributions illegal aliens make to the American economy — while minimizing some of the crimes they commit along the way. For instance, Reuters extolled the "nearly $97 billion in federal, state and local taxes" illegal aliens paid in 2022. The outlet also noted that some illegal aliens pay into social security without ever collecting benefits, implying they are either selfless philanthropists or victims of exploitation.

However, the outlet practically ignored the glaring identity theft problem associated with illegal aliens paying into social security, quickly stating only that "some undocumented workers obtain jobs by using fake or borrowed SSNs."

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Illegal Alien Allegedly Stole U.S. Citizen’s Identity, Committed Voter Fraud

An illegal alien faced voter fraud charges on Monday in federal court, after he allegedly lived in America for years under a citizen’s stolen identity. Carlos Jose Abreu, a 45-year-old national from the Dominican Republic, faces charges of “impersonating a United States citizen when registering to vote and when voting in a federal election,” according […]