Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Social Security Administration's vast databases of personal information have become a resource for federal investigators, who have asked the agency to check tens of thousands of records for number misuse and identity fraud -- potential precursors to terrorist activity.
The Social Security Administration is "literally the Fort Knox of identity information in the United States," said James Huse, the agency's inspector general from 1998 to 2004. "That's a pretty impressive investigative tool that no other agency possesses."
From just after Sept. 11 through 2005, Social Security officials sent prosecutors 456 referrals that were classified as terrorism-related, according to statistics compiled by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The review shows that 91 percent of those referrals led to prosecutions.
Only the departments of Justice and Homeland Security have referred more terrorism-related cases for prosecution, according to the Syracuse records, which are based on data compiled by the Justice Department's Executive Office for United States Attorneys."
Still, few if any suspects in Social Security cases are ever linked publicly to alleged terrorist activity. Most cases referred to prosecutors in the months after Sept. 11 involved document fraud by Latino immigrants working at airports.
May 19, 2007
Social Security And Terrorism Investigations Or Is It Just Illegal Immigration?
From the Washington Post:
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Like anything it can be abused, but Congress should give SSA the permanent authority to release wage related info.
SSA knows which employers are sending in wage reports with SSNs never issued, issued to another individual or used by multple workers.
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL
SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER MISUSE IN THE SERVICE, RESTAURANT, AND AGRICULTURE INDUSTRIES
http://www.ssa.gov/oig/ADOBEPDF/audittxt/A-08-05-25023.htm
"To its credit, SSA recognizes the impact SSN misuse has on its programs, including growth of the ESF, and has taken steps to reduce such activity. However, SSA’s ability to combat SSN misuse is hampered because employers do not routinely use the Agency’s Employee Verification Service (EVS) and we are not aware of instances where IRS has imposed existing civil penalties against employers who submit inaccurate wage reports. Furthermore, privacy and disclosure issues (that is, the inability to routinely share information regarding employers who filed large numbers or percentages of wage statements with inaccurate SSNs) have limited collaborative efforts between SSA and DHS."
In the specific case in the Post story, that guy use a false name on his permanent resident application, so he should go, but the same argument is being used to defend him as what is being used for the rest of the illegals, in that people have lived here for a long time and not caused any trouble they should stay, never mind that they broke the law to be here in the first place.
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