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Personal Responsibility Act
``` [The authoritarian agenda is hurtling forward in the new Congress. Only you can stop it. Get informed. Get involved. Spread the word.]
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 95 13:56:29 PDT
From: RISKS Forum
RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Monday 28 August 1995 Volume 17 : Issue 30
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Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 08:12:52 -0400 From: simsong@vineyard.net (Simson L. Garfinkel) Subject: Database for Deadbeat Dads
SOCIAL INSECURITY PLAN TO MAKE IT EASIER TO TRACK DOWN 'DEADBEAT DADS' WORRIES PRIVACY ADVOCATES Simson Garfinkel, Special to the Mercury News San Jose Mercury News, 17 July 1995, Business Monday, Page 1F Copyright 1995, Simson Garfinkel
ELEVEN years late, the 1984 as envisioned by George Orwell finally may arrive. Welfare reform legislation moving through Congress could dramatically increase the use of Social Security numbers by state governments as a way to track people from cradle to grave. The proposal, which would create or expand a series of national data banks, is designed to track people who don't want to be found. With support among both Democrats and Republicans, the proposal is striking fear among the guardians of privacy, who believe the legislation would increase the government's surveillance of the American public. ''What we are facing is the single greatest step toward big brother government since Watergate,'' said Donald L. Haines, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington. Nevertheless, the proposal has received relatively little attention because the expanded use of Social Security numbers is one of the few areas of agreement between the Republican-controlled Congress and the Clinton administration. Welfare reform was one of President Clinton's campaign promises, and it also was one of the 10 tenets of the Republican Party's ''Contract with America.'' Called the ''Personal Responsibility Act,'' the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the bill March 24. The Senate version, retitled the ''Family Self-Sufficiency Act of 1995,'' passed a committee vote June 9. Although the committee, chaired by Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., made substantial changes to the House bill, the sections dealing with the expanded use of Social Security numbers remained essentially intact. At the heart of the legislation is the desire to do something about so-called ''deadbeat dads'' - and moms - who refuse to pay court-ordered child support payments. Both Congress and the Clinton administration believe that a large amount of the money spent on the government's Aid to Families with Dependent Children program could be saved if more single parents obtained child support orders, and if those orders were better enforced. ''People normally say that there is a $34 billion gap'' between the $14 billion that is annually paid in child support and the $48 billion that theoretically could be collected, says Jane Checkan of the Health and Human Service's Administration on Children and Families in Washington. Checkan's figures are for the year 1993, the last year available. In an attempt to close this gap, the welfare reform legislation mandates increased surveillance of all American citizens. By tracking Americans when they change jobs or receive state driver's or professional licenses, the legislation's backers hope to give deadbeat dads nowhere to hide. The legislation also calls for mandatory reporting of Social Security numbers by people getting marriage licenses or divorced, and in paternity proceedings. These reports are designed to make it easier for single parents to obtain support orders, and to make it easier for state welfare agencies to figure out the identity of a spouse when a single parent applies for benefits. ''Ten million women are potentially eligible to child support for their kids,'' Checkan said. But many people do not take advantage of their legal rights. ''Forty-two percent do not have an award in place.'' Welfare reform pushed Checkan said that it is estimated that as much as 8 percent of the government's Aid to Families with Dependent Children payments could be eliminated if child support orders were obtained and enforced. ''That's why, in the Clinton proposal, that child support is such a major part of welfare reform,'' she said. Currently, many government agencies maintain databases that are indexed by Social Security numbers. Nevertheless, the databases are of limited use for welfare enforcement. Some of the databases are restricted by statute so that their information may not be used for purposes other than that which they were collected. A move to unify standards Others are not cross-indexed with databases of current address, employment and child support orders. Still other databases cannot easily be searched against, because the information is not in a uniform format. One of the intents of the legislation, sponsors say, is to bring order to this computational chaos by mandating standard data representation and indexing strategies. Basing the databanks on Social Security numbers is key to its success, said Bill Walsh, chief of California's Child Support Management Bureau, part of the Department of Social Services. ''I'll tell you, the Social Security number is probably the most important piece of data that there is in trying to locate parents that we can't find in order to establish child-support orders, or in cases where we have already established an order, to get payment on those orders,'' he said. A national database also could make it easier to track down the 30 percent of dads who live outside the state, said Walsh. Although such a database currently exists, the proposed legislation would greatly expand its reach, by creating a virtual dragnet that could not be escaped. Civil libertarians worry Walsh said his department is in favor of creation and expansion of the national databanks, because they ''allow us to have access to more and better data in order to locate parents who owe child support.'' Nevertheless, a growing number of civil libertarians are questioning the creation of large-scale national databanks, and the expanded use of Social Security numbers, for tracking down deadbeat dads. ''It's a databank that could be used to allow people to track people down for purposes having nothing to do with (child support),'' said Haines of the ACLU. Haines is especially worried that the system could be used to find victims of domestic violence who are attempting to hide from their assailants. ''An unfortunate truth is that in our justice system today, for many victims of domestic violence, their only hope for relief is to escape into some level of anonymity,'' he said. ''Protective orders don't work or aren't enforced.'' Although the legislation would prohibit the unauthorized use of the system, Haines characterized such use as ''inevitable.'' As an example, he noted how some abusive men find runaway spouses using surreptitious means, such as privileged data reserved for law enforcement. Potential for fraud Other privacy advocates are concerned that the databanks could be used as the basis for financial fraud. ''I think that there is a real danger using (information) provided for one purpose for another purpose,'' said Claudia Terraza, an attorney with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse at the University of San Diego. ''I see a real problem with people getting access to your Social Security number and from there, being able to find out your credit report, or for finding out other information that they could use for fraudulent purposes.'' Privacy advocates are most upset about the expansion of the Federal Parent Locator Service. As written, the legislation would create a national database of virtually all U.S. citizens - parents or not - with the stated purpose of tracking them so that any individual's most recent address and employer can be easily determined at any time. The legislation also would help enforce court- ordered parental visitation rights. Staff members working on both the House and Senate versions of the legislation said that lawmakers were aware of the privacy issues, and had tried to put ''privacy protection'' measures into the legislation without compromising the central goal of creating a national location registry. ''We had a long discussion about (privacy issues) - and the (lawmakers) were the main people doing the talking,'' said a staffer. ''There were some members who were real sensitive, and they were absolutely adamant that (the Social Security number) could not be required to be on the license itself.'' Nevertheless, the legislation does require states to ask drivers for their Social Security numbers when they are issued driver's licenses or professional licenses, and for those numbers to be reported to the central registry. ''What all of that means is that we will have a de facto national ID system in this country, which is going to be this database, and with a de facto national ID card, which will be your Social Security card/driver's license, all without a debate on whether or not Americans deserve to be subjected to a Soviet- or Nazi-style national ID system,'' Haines said.
Effort failed in '60s This is not the first time that the federal government has proposed creating a national databank. A proposal in the late 1960s called for the creation of a national data center that would ''pull together the scattered statistics in government files on citizens and to provide instant, total recall of significant education, health, citizenship, employment records and in some cases personal habits of individuals,'' reported an article in the Feb. 25, 1968 issue of The New York Times. At the time, the proposal was opposed by privacy advocates like Columbia University Professor Alan F. Westin and University of Michigan Law School Professor Arthur R. Miller. Information centers ''may become the heart of the surveillance system that will turn society into a transparent world in which our home, our finances, our associates, our mental and physical conditions are bared to the most casual observer,'' Miller told the Times. The national data center was never built, and today the controversy has been largely forgotten. Nevertheless, says Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, one of the important issues raised at the time was the danger of entrusting a single federal agency with so many different files. ''These proposals invariably reach further than originally intended,'' said Rotenberg. ''If the Social Security number is used today to catch welfare cheats, it can be used tomorrow to identify political dissidents. ''It is of course ironic that such a proposal would go through the Congress at the very same time that the Republican majority is urging greater relaxation of government regulation.''
INFOBOX: THEY'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER
Legislation currently before the Senate would mandate the creation or expansion of three national databanks. Each databank would be indexed by Social Security number. Together, they would track every American.
(box) Federal Parent Locator Service: Would contain a record of every driver's license and professional license issued in individual states.
(box) Federal Case Registry of Child Support Orders: Besides tracking every child support order issued by the states, this database also would contain records of every marriage, every divorce and every paternity determination case in the United States.
(box) State Directory of New Hires: This federal database would be updated every time an American started working for a new employer. It would contain the employee's name, address, job description, and the name of their employer.
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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 17.30
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