The solution is to abandon SSN as the enabler for identity theft by making it 100% completely public.
I certainly agree, but even that isn't necessary.
If this were the case, banks, etc would no longer ask for just an SSN to establish your identity.
Under the "Know Your Customer" laws, banks have to do more than that to establish your identity. Personally I couldn't even find a bank that would let me sign up for an account online using just my cell phone number. They wanted a land line registered to my address which was listed on my credit report. But I didn't have a land line, so I had to go in to the bank in person and show them ID.
Credit card companies are usually more lenient about these sorts of things, but even they almost never use '''just''' your SSN, they usually require you to answer a number of questions based on your credit report (how much money did you borrow on your car loan, who wrote your mortgage, etc.). On top of all that, if they fail to identify the person adequetely, and the account goes into default, no judge in the world is going to award a judgement to the person whose identity was "stolen". So it's a risk the credit card companies themselves bear, as a service to the consumer in making the application process easier. Finally, if you call up the three credit reporting companies and tell them your SSN was stolen (you probably only have to call up one), they will mark your SSN as compromised and any credit card company is going to see that and will require additional identification to open an account.
It'll be a pain in the ass for you, because you won't be able to do lots of things online or over the phone, but if you really care about this sort of thing go ahead and call the credit reporting agencies and report your SSN as compromised.
How about we just get rid of the SSN system completely?
You can bet that the credit reporting agencies will continue to use it anyway. It's quite useful for businesses to have a unique identifier for just about every citizen in the United States. Oh maybe they'll change the name to "credit reporting unique ID (CRUID)", but it'll still be an SSN.
BTW, it is not illegal in the US to "release" social security numbers and financial information.
This is true, but if you give away someone's SSN to someone who uses it to commit fraud, and you get caught, you can bet that you're going to be faced with a negligence lawsuit from whatever company (such as a credit card company) was affected by that fraud.
Preventive measures like changing their name, address, SSN and date of birth?
No, preventative measures such as calling the three credit agencies and marking your SSN as compromised. Anyone can do this, and if you do credit card companies (and online credit reporting services) will take extra steps to identify you before providing you with the service. For instance, my mother once had her SSN stolen, she reported it to the credit agencies, and now she can't get a copy of her credit report online, she has to call up the place from her home telephone and they'll only send it to her verified address. Same thing if she tries to sign up for a credit card online. They won't allow it without doing further checks.
So if you want to keep your SSN as private as possible you may have to live without electricity and water?
Why would you want to keep your SSN as private as possible in the first place? Trying to keep a good credit rating? But if you don't use your SSN, then your credit rating is meaningless anyway.
SSNs are identifiers, not security keys. Those who use them as security keys are the ones who are causing the problem, and they're the ones who pay, too. When someone takes out a credit card using your SSN and you deny that it was you who do you think pays, you or the credit card company?
Yeah and my bedspread says "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW". Doesn't mean it's an actual law. Being written on a card means nothing. To be a law, you have to actually pass a law.
As you all probably know I'm the last person that thinks that we should create laws due to overreaction but in this case I have to say that we do need more stringent laws against protecting SSNs.
What kind of laws would you suggest? I mean, it's just a friggen number.
We have all these demands for SSNs and we are supposed to be protecting them as our entire history is linked to them yet we don't have any real protections when they are.
I'm sure Berkeley can be sued for negligence in this case, especially if it's true that they had no need for the number in the first place. What more protection do we need?
I should also note that all this is based on the assumption that voter turnout is equal to 2000 Census figures; small variations in turnout would cause small variations in this result, and of course with unreasonable situations such as states where only one or three votes are cast, the final numbers get equally ridiculous.
But having some states where 100% of voters vote for one candidate and other states where only 49% do isn't ridiculous?
It appears these people have stupidly supplied a computer with no paper-book backup.
A paper-book backup would be worthless, because the purpose of the list is not only to see whether or not you are eligible to vote, but whether or not you've already voted. A centralized list must be accessed to do this, otherwise you could vote at 11 different locations and by the time you got caught your votes would be tabulated and no one could revoke them because no one could figure out how you voted in the first place.
Any Libertarian who supports Scalia or Thomas hasn't read the opinions of those Justices. Almost every opinion has been against individual liberty.
They've been against federal involvement in protecting individual liberty, perhaps.
As an example, take Thomas's dissenting opinion in the Newdow case -- he argues for what is essentially found state right against an individual right; i.e. he argues without providing any evidence whatsoever (and dismissing as irrelevent contrary evidence in the writings of Madison) that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was INTENDED to protect the States' right to establish sectarian churches.
He may not have provided evidence, but he's absolutely right. The First Amendment was a bar on federal action, not state action. This was modified in the Fourteenth Amendment, but he's absolutely right about the intent of the First Amendment.
I'm sorry, but I don't care how local the civil authority is, it has no business pressuring me to hold particular religious opinions.
Of course not, but that doesn't mean the Supreme Court of the United States has the right to get involved.
Contrast this with his dissenting opinion in Hamdi, where he cites Hamilton in his assertion that any action against citizens by the Executive Branch during a time of war is not subject to judicial review.
I've only briefly reviewed his dissent and I don't feel knowledgable enough about it to comment on it. You're right that the Libertarian Party (at least Badnarik) disagrees with Thomas's position though.
No right thinking libertarian could possibly support a President who would appoint more Statists to the Supreme Court.
I don't think being a strict constructionist makes you a statist. I can't find very much by Badnarik or Libertarians on this question, though. Maybe you're right.
I have voted green, and I'd vote for just about anything before I'd vote Constitution. My views are probably best categorized as moderate Libertarian, and this year I'll be voting for Kerry.
Constitution vs. Republican vs. Democrat vs. Green is a question about what kind of government you want, not about how much government you want. Libertarian says there should be virtually no government, and that's a little too scary for me, but I tend to favor smaller government when all else is equal. I must admit, though, I haven't really looked into Badnarik.
It's why he'll never be a viable candidate for President. I don't think it's a problem, though.
If Nader had focused on one issue - say, the minimum wage - and allowed himself to be middle-of-the-road everywhere else, then he would have been perceived as a safe candidate, and he'd probably be sucking up 15-20% of the vote like Perot did.
And what would that accomplish, other than ensuring that Bush gets re-elected? The purpose of Nader's candidacy is to send a message, not for him to actually get elected.
Come think of it, I highly doubt Nader would get more than 1% of the vote if he ran a campaign of "I'm just like Kerry but support a slightly higher minimum wage". The far left would vote Green, and the other Democrats would vote for Kerry.
Instead, he's got all these issues, and any particular voter is likely to find one or two of his ideas that they disagree with enough that it will keep them from voting for him.
People are going to disagree with any candidate. People won't vote for Nader even if they agree with him more than they agree with others, because he's a third party candidate. Aren't most Democrats against the death penalty? I'd assume most of them are in favor of decriminalization of pot. How does Nader's stance on these issues hurt him?
The major difference (at least in my view) was the difference between Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Clarence Thomas.
I agree with this. It was the biggest difference, and it wound up not being much of an actual difference at all.
And some have said that the next president could fill up to three vacancies. If that's Bush, then this could lead to Scalia and Thomas leading a majority on the court.
Don't tempt me to vote against the Democrats again:).
I voted Libertarian in 2000, since I was in Virginia and Gore didn't stand a chance, and Brown was closest to my ideal candidate.
I would think a Libertarian would support Scalia and Thomas. Of course, one would think a Nader voter would be against Scalia and Thomas, and I tend to agree with them and voted for Nader in 2000.
I'll be joining you in your vote for Kerry in 2004, though.
Gore had a history of environmentalism, which even continued while he was VP; I seriously doubt he'd have renounced Kyoto in the same way as Bush did immediately on taking office.
So instead of saying "no way" he'd have said "no thanks". That's not significant.
I always thought that was the most ironic part. Nader was standing as the Green Party candidate against Gore, saying there was no difference between Gore and Bush, when one of the most fundamental, most obvious, differences between the two were their policies on green issues.
Gore could have done a much better job of hilighting those issues.
Personally I'm opposed to the Kyoto treaty, and I voted for Nader in 2000.
As opposed to chaotic. Obviously the two candidates are going to behave differently, but in 2000 there was no clear significant difference.
We now know what to expect from another four years of Bush (though it could conceivable get much worse).
And this year I'll be voting for Kerry, whereas I voted for Nader in 2000. But I don't think I'd vote for Gore if he had run again in 2004. He just didn't do enough to differentiate himself from Bush.
We now know that Gore would have been the sane choice.
The Libertarian party is to the Republican party what Nader is to the Democrat party.
No, not at all. The Constitution Party is to the Republican Party what Nader is to the Democrat party. Libertarians come from both sides of the spectrum.
Nader in particular actually used that in 2000 to his advantage, in order to present the race as being no difference between the two major candidates...an obvious LIE to anybody actually follows these things, but it allowed Bush to have success in presenting the election as in strictly personality/culture issues.
There really wasn't much of a forseeable difference between the two candidates. I mean, maybe Gore wouldn't have gone into Iraq, but he certainly didn't run on that issue. What is the significant difference which you saw between Gore and Bush other than personality/culture?
Nader is much more an issue candidate than a party candidate. He didn't even agree with much of his party's platform when he voted in 2000. I didn't even hear about the Reform Party until I saw it listed next to his name on the sample ballot I got yesterday. Nader is running on a number of issues. Eliminate the death penalty. Decriminalize marijuana. Raise the minimum wage immediately to $8/hour, to $10 over a period of time, and then tie it to inflation. Maybe he hasn't gotten these issues out, but he's definitely an issue candidate. He likely only chose to accept the endorsement of a party in the first place because it makes it much easier to get on the ballot in a lot of states.
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The solution is to abandon SSN as the enabler for identity theft by making it 100% completely public.
I certainly agree, but even that isn't necessary.
If this were the case, banks, etc would no longer ask for just an SSN to establish your identity.
Under the "Know Your Customer" laws, banks have to do more than that to establish your identity. Personally I couldn't even find a bank that would let me sign up for an account online using just my cell phone number. They wanted a land line registered to my address which was listed on my credit report. But I didn't have a land line, so I had to go in to the bank in person and show them ID.
Credit card companies are usually more lenient about these sorts of things, but even they almost never use '''just''' your SSN, they usually require you to answer a number of questions based on your credit report (how much money did you borrow on your car loan, who wrote your mortgage, etc.). On top of all that, if they fail to identify the person adequetely, and the account goes into default, no judge in the world is going to award a judgement to the person whose identity was "stolen". So it's a risk the credit card companies themselves bear, as a service to the consumer in making the application process easier. Finally, if you call up the three credit reporting companies and tell them your SSN was stolen (you probably only have to call up one), they will mark your SSN as compromised and any credit card company is going to see that and will require additional identification to open an account.
It'll be a pain in the ass for you, because you won't be able to do lots of things online or over the phone, but if you really care about this sort of thing go ahead and call the credit reporting agencies and report your SSN as compromised.
How about we just get rid of the SSN system completely?
You can bet that the credit reporting agencies will continue to use it anyway. It's quite useful for businesses to have a unique identifier for just about every citizen in the United States. Oh maybe they'll change the name to "credit reporting unique ID (CRUID)", but it'll still be an SSN.
BTW, it is not illegal in the US to "release" social security numbers and financial information.
This is true, but if you give away someone's SSN to someone who uses it to commit fraud, and you get caught, you can bet that you're going to be faced with a negligence lawsuit from whatever company (such as a credit card company) was affected by that fraud.
Now it's time to effectively ENFORCE the law that bans the usage of the SSNos as identification number for businesses, especially banks.
They should probably PASS the law first, since no such law exists.
Citibank does.
Preventive measures like changing their name, address, SSN and date of birth?
No, preventative measures such as calling the three credit agencies and marking your SSN as compromised. Anyone can do this, and if you do credit card companies (and online credit reporting services) will take extra steps to identify you before providing you with the service. For instance, my mother once had her SSN stolen, she reported it to the credit agencies, and now she can't get a copy of her credit report online, she has to call up the place from her home telephone and they'll only send it to her verified address. Same thing if she tries to sign up for a credit card online. They won't allow it without doing further checks.
So if you want to keep your SSN as private as possible you may have to live without electricity and water?
Why would you want to keep your SSN as private as possible in the first place? Trying to keep a good credit rating? But if you don't use your SSN, then your credit rating is meaningless anyway.
SSNs are identifiers, not security keys. Those who use them as security keys are the ones who are causing the problem, and they're the ones who pay, too. When someone takes out a credit card using your SSN and you deny that it was you who do you think pays, you or the credit card company?
Yeah and my bedspread says "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW". Doesn't mean it's an actual law. Being written on a card means nothing. To be a law, you have to actually pass a law.
As you all probably know I'm the last person that thinks that we should create laws due to overreaction but in this case I have to say that we do need more stringent laws against protecting SSNs.
What kind of laws would you suggest? I mean, it's just a friggen number.
We have all these demands for SSNs and we are supposed to be protecting them as our entire history is linked to them yet we don't have any real protections when they are.
I'm sure Berkeley can be sued for negligence in this case, especially if it's true that they had no need for the number in the first place. What more protection do we need?
I should also note that all this is based on the assumption that voter turnout is equal to 2000 Census figures; small variations in turnout would cause small variations in this result, and of course with unreasonable situations such as states where only one or three votes are cast, the final numbers get equally ridiculous.
But having some states where 100% of voters vote for one candidate and other states where only 49% do isn't ridiculous?
It appears these people have stupidly supplied a computer with no paper-book backup.
A paper-book backup would be worthless, because the purpose of the list is not only to see whether or not you are eligible to vote, but whether or not you've already voted. A centralized list must be accessed to do this, otherwise you could vote at 11 different locations and by the time you got caught your votes would be tabulated and no one could revoke them because no one could figure out how you voted in the first place.
Maybe you're just trolling. If not, see this page.
Any Libertarian who supports Scalia or Thomas hasn't read the opinions of those Justices. Almost every opinion has been against individual liberty.
They've been against federal involvement in protecting individual liberty, perhaps.
As an example, take Thomas's dissenting opinion in the Newdow case -- he argues for what is essentially found state right against an individual right; i.e. he argues without providing any evidence whatsoever (and dismissing as irrelevent contrary evidence in the writings of Madison) that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was INTENDED to protect the States' right to establish sectarian churches.
He may not have provided evidence, but he's absolutely right. The First Amendment was a bar on federal action, not state action. This was modified in the Fourteenth Amendment, but he's absolutely right about the intent of the First Amendment.
I'm sorry, but I don't care how local the civil authority is, it has no business pressuring me to hold particular religious opinions.
Of course not, but that doesn't mean the Supreme Court of the United States has the right to get involved.
Contrast this with his dissenting opinion in Hamdi, where he cites Hamilton in his assertion that any action against citizens by the Executive Branch during a time of war is not subject to judicial review.
I've only briefly reviewed his dissent and I don't feel knowledgable enough about it to comment on it. You're right that the Libertarian Party (at least Badnarik) disagrees with Thomas's position though.
No right thinking libertarian could possibly support a President who would appoint more Statists to the Supreme Court.
I don't think being a strict constructionist makes you a statist. I can't find very much by Badnarik or Libertarians on this question, though. Maybe you're right.
What would you suggest as a better backup plan?
I have voted green, and I'd vote for just about anything before I'd vote Constitution. My views are probably best categorized as moderate Libertarian, and this year I'll be voting for Kerry.
Constitution vs. Republican vs. Democrat vs. Green is a question about what kind of government you want, not about how much government you want. Libertarian says there should be virtually no government, and that's a little too scary for me, but I tend to favor smaller government when all else is equal. I must admit, though, I haven't really looked into Badnarik.
Nader's problem is that he has too many issues.
It's why he'll never be a viable candidate for President. I don't think it's a problem, though.
If Nader had focused on one issue - say, the minimum wage - and allowed himself to be middle-of-the-road everywhere else, then he would have been perceived as a safe candidate, and he'd probably be sucking up 15-20% of the vote like Perot did.
And what would that accomplish, other than ensuring that Bush gets re-elected? The purpose of Nader's candidacy is to send a message, not for him to actually get elected.
Come think of it, I highly doubt Nader would get more than 1% of the vote if he ran a campaign of "I'm just like Kerry but support a slightly higher minimum wage". The far left would vote Green, and the other Democrats would vote for Kerry.
Instead, he's got all these issues, and any particular voter is likely to find one or two of his ideas that they disagree with enough that it will keep them from voting for him.
People are going to disagree with any candidate. People won't vote for Nader even if they agree with him more than they agree with others, because he's a third party candidate. Aren't most Democrats against the death penalty? I'd assume most of them are in favor of decriminalization of pot. How does Nader's stance on these issues hurt him?
The major difference (at least in my view) was the difference between Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Clarence Thomas.
I agree with this. It was the biggest difference, and it wound up not being much of an actual difference at all.
And some have said that the next president could fill up to three vacancies. If that's Bush, then this could lead to Scalia and Thomas leading a majority on the court.
Don't tempt me to vote against the Democrats again :).
I voted Libertarian in 2000, since I was in Virginia and Gore didn't stand a chance, and Brown was closest to my ideal candidate.
I would think a Libertarian would support Scalia and Thomas. Of course, one would think a Nader voter would be against Scalia and Thomas, and I tend to agree with them and voted for Nader in 2000.
I'll be joining you in your vote for Kerry in 2004, though.
Special. RTA.
Gore had a history of environmentalism, which even continued while he was VP; I seriously doubt he'd have renounced Kyoto in the same way as Bush did immediately on taking office.
So instead of saying "no way" he'd have said "no thanks". That's not significant.
I always thought that was the most ironic part. Nader was standing as the Green Party candidate against Gore, saying there was no difference between Gore and Bush, when one of the most fundamental, most obvious, differences between the two were their policies on green issues.
Gore could have done a much better job of hilighting those issues.
Personally I'm opposed to the Kyoto treaty, and I voted for Nader in 2000.
They key word is "forseeable".
As opposed to chaotic. Obviously the two candidates are going to behave differently, but in 2000 there was no clear significant difference.
We now know what to expect from another four years of Bush (though it could conceivable get much worse).
And this year I'll be voting for Kerry, whereas I voted for Nader in 2000. But I don't think I'd vote for Gore if he had run again in 2004. He just didn't do enough to differentiate himself from Bush.
We now know that Gore would have been the sane choice.
I don't know that. Not at all.
The Libertarian party is to the Republican party what Nader is to the Democrat party.
No, not at all. The Constitution Party is to the Republican Party what Nader is to the Democrat party. Libertarians come from both sides of the spectrum.
Nader in particular actually used that in 2000 to his advantage, in order to present the race as being no difference between the two major candidates...an obvious LIE to anybody actually follows these things, but it allowed Bush to have success in presenting the election as in strictly personality/culture issues.
There really wasn't much of a forseeable difference between the two candidates. I mean, maybe Gore wouldn't have gone into Iraq, but he certainly didn't run on that issue. What is the significant difference which you saw between Gore and Bush other than personality/culture?
Perot was probably the best example of this in recent times.
I just realized the irony of this. Perot started the Reform party, and the reform party is the party which endorsed Nader in 2004.
Nader is much more an issue candidate than a party candidate. He didn't even agree with much of his party's platform when he voted in 2000. I didn't even hear about the Reform Party until I saw it listed next to his name on the sample ballot I got yesterday. Nader is running on a number of issues. Eliminate the death penalty. Decriminalize marijuana. Raise the minimum wage immediately to $8/hour, to $10 over a period of time, and then tie it to inflation. Maybe he hasn't gotten these issues out, but he's definitely an issue candidate. He likely only chose to accept the endorsement of a party in the first place because it makes it much easier to get on the ballot in a lot of states.
In Florida he's listed under the Reform Party.