Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Sir, I congratulate you. The way in which you seamlessly changed the topic to a totally unrelated one which you preferred to discuss was incredibly clever and subtle.
Oh no, hang on.... my mistake. It was neither! Are you the Republican equivalent of those people who use any excuse to make an offtopic attack on George Bush? Seems like it to me.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Anyway, the first thing I thought of when they said the supervisor needed sufficient proof is the picture of the now living deceased holding a paper with a current date just like Osama and other terrorists would have to do to prove their still bumping around some cave.