Government Mistakenly Declares Deaths of Citizens

superbrose writes "According to MSNBC, thousands of U.S. citizens have wrongfully been declared dead, due to an average of 35 data input errors per day by the Social Security Administration (SSA). Many other agencies rely on the data provided by the SSA, such as the IRS. People who have been wrongfully declared dead face many problems, such as rejection of tax returns, cancellation of health insurance, and closure of bank accounts. The article states, 'Input of an erroneous death entry can lead to benefit termination and result in financial hardship for a beneficiary.' Apparently it is far easier to declare a person's death than it is to correct the mistake. It continues, 'Social Security says an erroneous death record can be removed only when it is presented with proof that the original record was entered in error. The original error must be documented, and the deletion must be approved by a supervisor after "pertinent facts supporting reinstatement" are available in the system.'"

Comments

Do you trust the government with your idenity?

[Nomen Publicus]

Just wait until everybody has ID cards. Having your card cancelled by mistake is going to really ruin your day, month and quite probably, year.

Re:Do you trust the government with your idenity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, ID helps in this case. The problem is what happens in a system in a corner room of some govt agency. But if you have an ID, it will be easier for you to prove you are alive - even if its canceled by mistake in a database.

BTW, I just love the procedure to un-dead the deads!

Re:Do you trust the government with your idenity?

[Cal Paterson]

It's because "Left" changed its meaning between 1910 and 1945; it used to mean what is now libertarianism(/classical liberalism). "Right" changed its meaning later on, probably when religion and neoconservationism got involved in US politics. As such, the old distinction between individualism (Left) and collectivism (Right) got moved around and the left-right spectrum is no longer of any use. Nowadays, "Right" and "Left" are mostly used to affiliate people with various parties (but not ideologies), essentially because certain parts of socialism are very easy to sell to the public.

Re:wouldn't it be great?

[CastrTroy]

Stuff like this never really makes an impact until somebody important gets hit. I remember one reporter sent a copy of the Minister of Privacy's phone records to her, just to show her how easily you could get ahold of somebody's supposedly private phone records, for just a small fee.

Re:death certificate

[the bluebrain]

Wouldn't they get a clue if you walked into their main office breathing and all?

Occam's razor has a bureaucratic counterpart: "All things being equal, the solution that means I don't have to do any extra work tends to be the best one."

You're still dead, friend.

Americans' paranoia is wearing off

[mi]

Have you ever actually read the constitution? It borders on paranoid as to the extent to which it goes to ensure that the government doesn't become too powerful. America's worst infractions have been a result of directly and blatantly violating the constitution.

I think, the GP's point was, Americans today don't care as much — we don't share the Founders' paranoia. Probably, because we have not seen the problem firsthand in too many generations — thanks, no doubt, to the Constitution.

The First Amendment itself is getting chipped away — you can't fake e-mail headers (there goes the anonymous speech, deemed precious on this very forum every time some asshole tries to get away breaking copyrights), and you can't be helping a political candidate too much.

But Americans welcome these laws, because they seem to address an acute problem (spam, lobbyists with too much freedom of speech, etc.). We clearly lost most of that paranoia of 200 years ago... Don't even get me started on the Second Amendment...