Website Posts Partial SSNs of Politicians in Protest 257
John3 writes "The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights has posted partial Social Security numbers for several California politicians to protest their vote against pending privacy legislation. According to a San Francisco Chronicle story, the SSNs were purchased on the Internet for $26." Now there's an effective way of showing the problems of the status quo.
Change their minds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why only partial? (Score:5, Insightful)
i say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Trading Card (Score:5, Insightful)
I love it when political groups pull off silly stunts to make a point. Politics grows more and more entertaining and less helpful everyday.
Transparency vs secrecy (Score:5, Insightful)
Valid Point, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
John
Whoop deedoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Change their minds? (Score:3, Insightful)
It might make politians think twice next time.
Re:Why only partial? (Score:5, Insightful)
Still don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)
The tactics do not show how out of control lobbying is a bad thing (even if it is), they show that those in dissent don't have a clue about what information they are allowing to be broadcast.
I just finished my dinner, so this must be "just desserts!"
"vote our conscience" hahahaha (Score:5, Insightful)
"We should be free to vote our conscience and not be threatened or harassed if we choose to vote contrary to people who are lobbying for special legislation," said Assemblyman Ed Chavez, D-La Puente, one of the lawmakers whose partial number was published.
What a crock. I wonder how much money he takes from special interest and lobby groups that pay him to "vote his conscience."
Politicians = soul merchants
politicians should stop complaining (Score:4, Insightful)
If you dont like having your SSN number spread around the internet then perhaps you should pass legislation to protect everyone (of course instead will end up with legislation that only protects politions and those who have a lot more than $26 to line there pockets).
Release more than just the first 4 numbers. (Score:4, Insightful)
All that can be deduced from that info is an approximate region of birth and possibly age.
Perhaps these guys should release one extra number per week until they get the privacy laws corrected.
LK
Glorious (Score:4, Insightful)
Heheh... what a great poke-in-the-eye to the legislators, and a great demonstration of what the issue was really about.
No full SSN's were given out, so no harm was really done here... just some angry lawmakers... Let's hope they have the introspection to learn from this jab.
Bravo.
Re:Valid Point, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I respectfully disagree. This is a perfectly valid way to express dissatisfaction with the decision of these lawmakers.
"Really assemblyman? This privacy measure isn't needed? Will your position be the same when it's YOUR information instead of ours?"
I agree 100% with these guys.
Re:Valid Point, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
They assembly people are elected and sworn to uphold the public good.
They failed to do so.
The entire point of a representative democrocy is that the whole of the population need not be routinely engaged in governmental matters. Your assumption suggests we do, in fact, need to because our "representatives" will not act appropriately (or with even slight common sense) otherwise.
Again, they failed in doing their jobs.
I see NO point why they shouldn't pay the price for the ignorance and arrogance they displayed in failing to protect their citezens. I'd have posted their full SSN, and been MOST happy if any of them were to actually suffer id theft because of it.
Good for us, good for them. Period.
Only the first 3 digits (Score:3, Insightful)
That way they'd have a pretty good idea that you have the info.
Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights (Score:3, Insightful)
Good to know they think of others as nothing but consumers and taxpayers. Imagine actually thinking of someone else as a PERSON... THE HORROR!
Re:Why only partial? (Score:5, Insightful)
Incorrect, they do it at YOUR risk.
Re:can anyone... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which of course, is a stupid thing to do, since the SS# is NOT GUARANTEED TO BE UNIQUE. In other words, the financial industry would rather pay millions to hire lobbyists and lawyers, than pay the millions to fix lazy programming and procedures, UNLESS threated with dire legal consequences (for example, Y2K liabilities.)
Not to mention they all sell your personal info, trade it amongst themselves, and view any legislation that would crimp that practice as a threat to one of their core businesses. Mind you, this industry really only exists in the US - this country is one of the few places in the world where you can open a bank account and apply for a credit card/loan without ever showing your face in person.
This is the same kind of thinking that lets credit fraud happen - they rather just change your card number and cover the charge (shafting the merchant who got defrauded in the process) than actually tracking down the bastard who stole your card/identity. As far as the banks are concerned, it's a cost of doing business. The banks/credit bureaus are not interested in prosecuting the criminals who steal identities because it doesn't hurt them the slightest bit - they pass all the costs to the merchants. And if you get screwed in the process? Well too bad for you.
Now, why is it that medical data is now better protected than your other personal info? We need a version of HIPPA(sp?) for the financial industry, TODAY.
All it seems to have done is get "special" laws... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SSN makes you life easier. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are Americans so much more paranoid than other people? Have your government really screwed over that many times?
How can you Europeans be so laid back about this, when you've got examples of ethnic cleansing in Germany, Kosovo, Turkey, Macedonia, among others. [columbia.edu]. Don't get me wrong...Americans also have our own checkered past (Slavery, Japanese interment camps, near genocide of Native-Americans, etc.) but at least we're worried about our own ugly past repeating itself.
Re:Transparency vs secrecy (Score:4, Insightful)
A transparent government is necessary for the people to control it. How else do we evaluate how our "employees" are doing?
The privacy of individuals is critical to dissent.
It does not have to be the same.
It's sad that people are throwing away their freedoms.
Re:SSN: Public or Confidential Information? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why doesn't the IRS/money people make their own number, dividing up the risk of the almost inevitable possibility of its theft. This would dramatically reduce the risk of falling victim to social security fraud.
Some resources:
SSN/Privacy FAQ's [cpsr.org] (cpsr.org)
General Privacy info
Re:SSN makes you life easier. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not the government screwing you over, it's your fellow criminal who is interested in identity theft [consumer.gov].
If your single ID is used for everything from credit card applications, bank statements, medical records, then a person who finds your ID can access all of them.
Think it's a joke? A good friend of mine's mailbox was broken into many times, when he lived in an apartment, where they stole credit card pre-approved applications and redirected them to a different address. If they had succeeded, you bet they would have rang up tons of charges under his name, ruining his credit. Identity theft can completely ruin your life. Just because you've never heard of anyone abusing an ID number doesn't mean it has happened.
Definitely ironic. But was it right? Or effective? (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, I have to ask was this right. Doesn't this undercut the position that people have privacy rights, and no matter how much we may not want to respect them, we will. I am, in a sense, reminded of Voltaire's statement: "I disagree with your believe, but I will defed to your death the right to hold it."
I also question the effectiveness of this tactic. Pulling and showing confidential information in a private setting or in the context of a public hearing (for example pulling together a detailed dosier, handing it to a legislators, and saying, "Do you think I should have this information? Well, we don't either, that is why we want this law passed.") to specific legislators. Frankly, this is about as helpful and effective as my making the basktball team pee blue in high school.
To me, this once again demonstrates that we geeks in general don't know how to work the system. We disparage thhose that do know how to use it - much as we were diparaged as "geeks" in High School by the jocks - and then wonder why we fail. We could stand to learn a little bit about how to influence the world.
Oh, but they do. (Score:3, Insightful)
And, no, it is not funny...
Re:SSN makes you life easier. (Score:5, Insightful)
Want to get a credit card? You need to show up at the bank with a picture ID.
Re:SSN makes you life easier. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why only partial? (Score:3, Insightful)
This basically reinforces my theory that in 10 years we will have a defacto aristocracy in the United States: the 2% of the population with enough power to keep their personal information out of public databases.
sPh
Re:"vote our conscience" hahahaha (Score:2, Insightful)
Identity theft (Score:2, Insightful)
Americans should be paranoid. Most aren't. That is the problem.
Re:SSN makes you life easier. (Score:2, Insightful)
Although the government has been trying (and sometimes succeeded) in widening the use of the "social-fiscal number" in Holland, there are laws against using it for purposes other than those explicitly allowed.
I don't know about Denmark, but I have the feeling that the danish poster doesn't really now much about Europe.
Re:SSN makes you life easier. (Score:5, Insightful)
You think of government as a way of helping people. We think of government as a way of taking away people's rights. Obviously we want some rights to be restricted - like the right to kill someone and take his stuff - so we suffer ourselves to be goverened. But we all firmly believe that smaller governments are intrinsically better than large ones.
It's also a factor that, in a strange way, most Europeans are more jaded about politics than Americans. Oh, we think our politicians are corrupt liars too, but we have hope that they can change. It seems like most Europeans have just accepted that their representatives are crooks and have given up on actual democracy. Well, we're nearing that point, so perhaps we're not so different after all.
Re:Government above the law (Score:1, Insightful)
And in case you don't believe these words of wisdom, just check out the text of most federal laws (at least) -- they all have a section exempting members of congress, or congress itself, from the law. There may be federal minimum wage laws, but they don't cover congressional staff.