Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-10_ifjn.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

§1028A(a)(1) to connote theft.  While it is not necessary to
determine the precise metes and bounds of these two verbs,
their role in the provision points to this targeted reading. 
Section 1028A(a)(1) covers unlawful possession or transfer 
of a means of identification belonging to “another person.”
Generally, to unlawfully “possess” something belonging to 
another person suggests it has been stolen.  And to unlaw-
fully “transfer” something belonging to another person sim-
ilarly connotes misappropriating it and passing it along.  In 
Flores-Figueroa, this Court drew a similarly intuitive link
between  a  defendant  taking  a  means  of  identification  he 
knows belongs to another person and “ ‘theft.’ ”  556 U. S., at 
655.  The  Government,  at  argument,  agreed:  these  two
verbs  “refer  to  circumstances  in  which  the  information  is 
stolen.”  Tr. of Oral Arg. 90.7 

“Transfer” and “possess” not only connote theft, but iden-
tity theft in particular.  The verbs point to (1) theft of a (2) 
means  of  identification  belonging  to  (3)  another  person.
That  tracks  ordinary  understandings  of  identity  theft:  “a
crime in which someone [1] steals [2] personal information
about and [3] belonging to another.”  Black’s 894.  Similarly, 
“the [1] fraudulent appropriation and use of [3] another per-
son’s [2] identifying data or documents.”  Webster’s xi.  If 
this parallel were not enough, §1028A(a)(1)’s title indicates
that the type of theft its verbs connote is identity theft spe-
cifically.

Because “transfer” and “possess” channel ordinary iden-
tity theft, noscitur a sociis indicates that “uses” should be 

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7 Those  who  find  legislative  history helpful will  find  yet  further  sup-
port.    “[P]ossesses”  refers  to  “someone  who  has  wrongly  acquired  an-
other’s means of identification, but has not yet put it to use or transferred
it  elsewhere.”    H. R.  Rep.  No.  108–528,  p. 10  (2004).    “[T]ransfers”  is
when the defendant “transferred it to another person or location where 
it can be put to use.”  Ibid.  And “uses” is when “a defendant . . . obtained 
someone  else’s  means  of  identification  and  actually  put  that  means  of 
identification to use.”  Ibid.