Syllabus
The Government urges the Court to ignore §1028A’s title, because the Government’s reading of the provision bears little resemblance to ordinary understandings of “identity theft.” This broad reading would, in practice, place garden-variety overbilling at the core of §1028A. Instead, “identity theft” has a focused meaning: “[T]he fraudulent appropriation and use of another person’s identifying data or documents,” Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary xi, or “[t]he unlawful taking and use of another person’s identifying information for fraudulent purposes,” Black’s Law Dictionary 894. This understanding of identity theft supports a reading of “in relation to” where use of the means of identification is at the crux of the underlying crime. And under these definitions, identity theft occurs when a defendant “uses” the means of identification itself to defraud others. Further, the inclusion of “aggravated” in §1028A’s title suggests that Congress had in mind a particularly serious form of identity theft, not just all manner of everyday overbilling offenses. Pp. 8–12.
(2) Section 1028A(a)(1)’s language points in the same direction as its title. In particular, Congress used a trio of verbs that reflect an ordinary understanding of identity theft. Section 1028A(a)(1) applies when a defendant “knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person,” “during and in relation to” any predicate offense. (Emphasis added). The two verbs neighboring “uses”—“transfers” and “possesses”—are most naturally read in the context of §1028A(a)(1) to connote not only theft, but ordinary understandings of identity theft in particular, i.e., they point to (1) theft of a (2) means of identification belonging to (3) another person. Because “transfer” and “possess” channel ordinary identity theft, the interpretative cannon noscitur a sociis (“ ‘a word is known by the company it keeps,’ ” McDonnell v. United States, 579 U. S. 550, 568–569) indicates that “uses” should be read in a similar manner. In addition, the Court “assume[s] that Congress used [three] terms because it intended each term to a have a particular, nonsuperfluous meaning.” Bailey, 516 U. S., at 146. On a more targeted reading, §1028A(a)(1)’s three verbs capture the complexity of identity theft, which intermingles aspects of theft and fraud, misappropriation and deceitful use. While “transfer” and “possess” conjure up two steps of theft, “uses” supplies the deceitful use aspect. In contrast, if §1028A(a)(1) is not read in this narrow manner, then the two other verbs risk leaving “uses” without “virtually any function.” Ibid. Pp. 12–15.
