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2000 Ron Paul Chapter 87 Ron Paul’s Congressional website ... Cached   Contents   Congressional Record (Page E1845)  Cached 17 October 2000 SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER CONFIDENTIALITY ACT OF 1999 ------------ Statement of HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS [Page: E1845] 2000 Ron Paul 87:1 Madam Speaker, I am pleased to support HR 3218, the Social Security Number Confidentiality Act. This bill takes a step toward protecting the integrity and security of the Social Security number by ensuring that window envelopes used by the Federal Government do not display an individual’s Social Security number. HR 3218 will help protect millions of Americans from the devastating crime of identity theft, which is a growing problem in my district and throughout the country. 2000 Ron Paul 87:2 This bill will be partially helpful to senior citizens who rely on Social Security. These seniors could lose a lifetime’s worth of savings if a criminal obtained their Social Security number. We owe it to America’s senior citizens to make sure that they are not exposed to the risk of identity theft as a price of receiving their Social Security benefits. 2000 Ron Paul 87:3 While this bill does represent a good step toward protecting privacy, I would remind my colleagues that much more needs to be done to ensure the Social Security number is not used as means of facilitating identity crimes. The increasing prevalence of identity theft is directly related to the use of the Social Security number as a uniform identifier. 2000 Ron Paul 87:4 For all intents and purposes, the Social Security number is already a national identification number. Today, in the majority of states, no American can get a job, open a bank account, get a drivers’ license, or receive a birth certificate for one’s child without presenting their Social Security number. So widespread has the use of the Social Security number become that a member of my staff had to produce a Social Security number in order to get a fishing license! 2000 Ron Paul 87:5 Unscrupulous people have found ways to exploit this system and steal another’s identity — the ubiquity of the Social Security number paved the way for these very predictable abuses and crimes. Congress must undo the tremendous injury done to the people’s privacy and security by the federal government’s various mandates which transformed the Social Security number into a universal identifier. 2000 Ron Paul 87:6 In order to stop the disturbing trend toward the use of the Social Security number as a uniform ID I have introduced the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act (HR 220), which forbids the use of the Social Security number for purposes not related to Social Security. The Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act also contains a blanket prohibition on the use of identifiers to ‘investigate, monitor, oversee, or otherwise regulate’ American citizens. Mr. Speaker, prohibiting the Federal Government from using standard identifiers will help protect Americans from both private and public sector criminals. 2000 Ron Paul 87:7 While much of the discussion of identity theft and related threats to privacy has concerned private sector criminals, the major threat to privacy lies in the power uniform identifiers give to government officials. I am sure I need not remind my colleagues of the sad history of government officials of both parties using personal information contained in IRS or FBI files against their political enemies, or of the cases of government officials rummaging through the confidential files of celebrities and/or their personal acquaintances, or of the Medicare clerk who sold confidential data about Medicare patients to a Health Maintenance Organization. After considering these cases, one cannot help but shudder at the potential for abuse if an unscrupulous government official is able to access one’s complete medical, credit, and employment history by simply typing the citizens’ ‘uniform identifier’ into a database. 2000 Ron Paul 87:8 In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I enthusiastically join in supporting HR 3218 which will help protect millions of senior citizens and other Americans from identity theft by strengthening the confidentiality of the Social Security number. I also urge my colleagues to protect all Americans from the threat of national identifiers by supporting my Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act.

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