Interesting Parallel

      From the Washington Post:

A federal judge has found that the Internal Revenue Service violated federal law “approximately 42,695 times” when it shared confidential taxpayer addresses with immigration enforcement officials last summer.


U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued the ruling Thursday as part of ongoing litigation over a data-sharing arrangement between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security.


Federal law requires that before the IRS hands over a taxpayer’s address, a requesting agency must first provide the IRS with the name and address of the person it’s looking for. The requirement exists to ensure that the government can access confidential tax records only for individuals it has already specifically identified.
The ruling finds that DHS did not follow this law. The judge wrote that the vast majority of the nearly 47,300 taxpayer addresses the IRS shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August were disclosed without the IRS confirming that ICE provided a valid address for the person whose records it was seeking. … 

     This happened just before Bisignano became the “CEO” of the IRS. The data compromises at Social Security happened just before Bisignano became Commissioner of Social Security.

Interview With Commissioner

      The AARP recently interviewed Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano. They’ve published a transcript. The questions were only of the softball variety. They didn’t even ask about his dual role with the IRS!

Bisignano To Testify At Congressional Hearing

      The House Ways and Means Committee has scheduled a hearing with Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano for 10:00 on March 4. However, this hearing concerns Bisignano’s position as “CEO” of the IRS, a position that doesn’t really exist. Nothing will prevent Committee members from asking questions about Social Security or Bisignano’s business history.

A Poll

 

Four Times? Accidental?

      From Fox 4:

… 94-year-old Helen Cvik was declared legally dead in December 2025 by Social Security. The problem is, Miss Helen is still alive.

It's the fourth time since 2017 that Miss Helen has been declared dead by the SSA, including twice in 2025 alone. The first and second incidents in 2017 and 2020 were resolved quickly, with no explanation given for the error. …

The most recent accidental declaration has not been resolved, leaving Miss Helen and her family to pick up a $5,000 bill to cover her insurance, prescriptions, and her assisted living facility care. …

Computer Systems Down

      I understand that Social Security is having nationwide computer systems problems today. Could this be related to reassigning staff who normally maintain such systems to answering the phone?

Immigration Brutality At Social Security

      From Fox 4:

59-year-old Ramona Rakestraw said she has relied on Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, as her sole source of income while battling kidney disease and cancer. She tells FOX 4 that her payments stopped in October after she was told her immigration status was under review.

Rakestraw said she was born in 1966 at Parkland Hospital in Dallas [where JFK was taken after being shot] and has never lived outside Dallas County nor has she traveled outside the United States.

Kidney disease first sent Rakestraw to dialysis at age 28. 

She later received a transplant, but about 30 years later she returned to dialysis and received a cancer diagnosis in 2024.  …

Rakestraw said she took her identification and birth certificate to her local Social Security office in an effort to resolve the issue.

"That’s my income, my whole income," she said. …

Rakestraw said she has filed an appeal and completed the required paperwork. …

     And now the problem has been solved. It only took the involvement of a TV station. 

Over 1 Billion SSNs Exposed

      From PC Mag:

In a disturbing find, a cybersecurity vendor discovered an exposed online database that may have been storing as many as 1 billion Social Security numbers (SSNs). 

A database indexed using Elasticsearch was left open on the internet, according to security provider UpGuard. The stockpile contained 3 billion records, including email addresses and passwords, along with another dataset of 2.7 billion records, including SSNs.

Specifically, the SSNs consisted of two datasets spanning 353.3GB and 76.7GB, for a total of 430GB, UpGuard told PCMag. The company suspects a hacker or “amateurish threat intelligence vendor” is behind the database.  …