Social Security numbers and identity theft

One of the fastest-growing forms of crime today is the theft of a person's credit. It's more commonly known as "identity theft" but the criminal is not trying to steal your identity so much as he or she is trying to hijack your credit. They will open bank accounts and credit cards, or buy large items, posing as you and using your credit. Then they clear your accounts of cash and borrow everything that your credit rating will allow, as fast as they can so to avoid discovery or capture.

People who have had their credit stolen often take years to restore their lives, their careers, and their reputations. They may never recover their dignity, or their faith in a just society.

The single thing that makes identity theft so easy and common is the use of a single identifying number, by governments, credit agencies, lenders, and sellers of goods: the Social Security number. Overwhelmingly, they use this number for purposes that have no relation whatever to collecting unemployment insurance premiums from you or delivering unemployment or retirement benefits to you.

Every entity you deal with is likely to demand your Social Security number, even if they don't have a legal right to it. Too many Americans don't know better, and provide that number when asked. The few who resist are either browbeaten into giving it, or are denied products or services without cause.

The people who started the Social Security system saw the potential for this to happen, and included sections in the law to prohibit the use of the Social Security account number as an identifying number. Gradually, however, those legal prohibitions were eroded, to the point that the Federal government is even compelling state and local governments to collect this number from you, rather than ordering them not to.

If you elect me to the Senate, I will work for the elimination of the use of the Social Security number for any purpose unrelated to Social Security. American ingenuity offers many different means to allow lenders, doctors, employers, and governments to verify your identity or access the information to which they have a right, without requiring you to submit a number that has become a de facto key to everything about you.

It is not necessary for you to be vulnerable to identity theft or privacy invasion. It is unwise to make yourself so vulnerable. I will sponsor legislation to undo this abuse, and to unleash the talent and determination of Americans to solve the problems that have brought this abuse about.

Because one of the largest users of the Social Security number is the US Department of Defense, I will sponsor legislation to require the DoD to launch a program to replace the SSN with a randomly-generated service number.

If an American serviceman is captured in a conflict, he or she is bound by international agreements to give only name, rank, date of birth, and service number. Because American armed forces use the Social Security Number as the service number, we are effectively ordering our captured servicemen to give over everything that an enemy would need to crush those servicemen, not just financially but personally. An Al Qaeda cell could use a captured serviceman's information to access cash for their efforts, and even to stalk or murder his family in the United States.

It has been only a few decades since our armed services converted from assigned service numbers to the SSN. This conversion has come with a significant cost. As a serviceman today, I have access to the SSNs of more than a thousand other members, as most of them also do, and they have access to mine. The DoD expends a much money and time building their systems to try to protect this number, often by showing only the last six digits of it in many systems and forms. This simply is not enough. That cost, as well as the risk of identity theft overall, would be spared if the SSN were not used in the first place.

If we direct the Department of Defense to return to assigning randomly-selected service numbers and masking the SSN, their experiences will pave the way for other institutions to do the same. The DoD will be free to contract with universities, private companies, and individuals to develop systems to stop using the Social Security number, and the DoD will then be able to license this technology to credit bureaus, insurance companies, governments, and banks.

This will not be a cheap or quick effort. Too many institutions and industries have become heavily dependent upon the SSN as identification. They will not be weaned from it inexpensively or without protest. It will probably take several attempts for us merely to pass the legislation and get it to the President for his signature. But I assure you it will not happen, in fact it will not even begin, if you do not elect me.