Slashdot Mirror
Website Posts Partial SSNs of Politicians in Protest
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.
This was done after the bill was passed....how could posting the SSN after the fact change anything?
Just post the whole thing. It's not like it matters. Bill Gates' social security number is 539-60-5125. So what?
good for them. This isn't an extorion of a threat, as some claim. As they have stated in their defence, it is a demonstration of the vulnerablity of ones information. Had they released the entire SSN, or threatened to do so, then I would not support them. But as it stands, they have provided a strong demonstration of a need for increased legislation toward the protection of privacy.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Gray Davis trading card, "Privacy Series". Mint condition. Best offer.
I love it when political groups pull off silly stunts to make a point. Politics grows more and more entertaining and less helpful everyday.
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
Either transparency or secrecy is acceptable -- as long as both the citizenry and the government have the same thing.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Had they done it before the vote, or gone to each Assembly-person and demonstrated the capability before the vote, that would've been legitimate lobbying. This is just petty and serves to make the Assembly-people less likely to listen to this group in the future.
John
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
If you really want to find someone's social security number, you can do it a million ways. Every business they work for has it on record, the credit beuru has it, your D/L has it tied in for police. All anyone really has to do is do a credit check on you, claiming to be a possible employer and such. I am not afraid of my SSN being released. Yeah, someone could really screw with my life, but then, I could sue the heck out of whatever company released it. Anything in life either has to have a SSN or a Birth Cirtificate anymore. Why not just implant babies with chips and call it a day? ;-)
I came, I saw, She conquered.
The thing that astounds me is that the people who voted no STILL don't get it.
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!"
from the sfgate article:
"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
Never argue with an idiot, he'll just lower you to his level and beat you with experience.
You dont give us privacy and then you demand privacy . Well that doesnt sound like a good *explitive deleted* deal?
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).
Thousands of people who were born in the same part of the country as me the same year I was have the same first 4 numbers.
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
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The man published the partial SSN's after the vote, so he wasn't trying to extort the legislators to vote for the bill. I'd say the extortion/threatening charges are a bit out of line for this.
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.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
He only posted the first 3 digits of Gray Davis's SSN, that's nothing. IIRC that part tells you where you registered. That can be figured out. If you really wanted to worry them, do something like 5x6-x3-x7x0.
That way they'd have a pretty good idea that you have the info.
Good to know they think of others as nothing but consumers and taxpayers. Imagine actually thinking of someone else as a PERSON... THE HORROR!
Hate me!
Because they all use SS# as a primary key in their databases.
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 to start the process of getting "special" laws enacted. I appears this will get "special" legislation passed restricting free speech especially where CA legislators are concerned.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
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.. 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.
You're completely dead on. I hate it whenever employers, financial institutions or ngo/go's ask for it. Before the IRS started using it as an ID your were not required to give it to anyone except the Social Security Agency. Because the IRS started using it, employers and just about every financial institution there is needed to use it as well. 98% of the organizations that I 'need to' give my number to have nothing to do with social security.
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)
General Privacy info
It's not the government screwing you over, it's your fellow criminal who is interested in identity theft.
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.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I appreciate the irony in this story. And there is a pat of me that believes that those involved got their "just desserts".
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.
Just not about the good of the people or the good of the country. Their thoughts are about personal ambition and personal gain.
And, no, it is not funny...
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The difference in Europe (at least Sweden) is that the SSN is like a username instead of a password (like the US SSN is).
Want to get a credit card? You need to show up at the bank with a picture ID.
Freevo - Linux Multimedia Jukebox
It wasn't our government necessarily that made us paranoid about privacy. It was originally the British who treated us colonies poorly. It was out of that political environment that we wrote up all the protections against the government in our Constitution, as well as the separation of powers. Every kid in the US gets taught the bill of rights and why they're all important, so most (outside of ashcroft) maintain that spirit of suspicion toward the government. That being said, our government has since done plenty of things to warrant our suspicion, but then, whose hasn't on some level or another?
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
Identity theft is becoming more of a problem here since there is so little protection. Theives just have to know your SSN, address, ect and soon they're using your credit cards and taking money from your bank account.
Americans should be paranoid. Most aren't. That is the problem.
"We" Europeans are definitely not laid-back about such things. Generally, privacy-protection laws are way stronger in Europe than in the USA.
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.
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.
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.