I would invite readers to review this heavily redacted report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) on fraudulent internet claims released late Friday afternoon and say whether they think it was properly redacted. Was OIG's point in redacting this to protect information which could be used to defraud the trust funds or was it to reduce the agency's embarrassment? Here's a little bit of the report to give you an idea:
Why are all the numbers that would give one an idea how bad the problem is redacted? Also, why was this released late on a Friday afternoon, the traditional time for dumping embarrassing information? I wouldn't think that OIG would be trying to reduce the agency's embarrassment but just look at the redactions! Were the redactions OIG’s idea or something done at the agency’s insistence? I have seen dozens, probably hundreds, of OIG reports over the years but never one with redactions. There have been quite many where only a stub is released due to security concerns but never one with redactions. There has to be a story behind this.
3 comments:
Almost all the numbers are redacted, and I can't see any purpose to that except to hide the results. But I don't think it is because they are large. Om pages 4 and 5, the actually number of claims paid that might have been fraudulent, of the 200 examined, is redacted, but the amount of space indicates that it is likely a single digit, which means it would be less than 5% of the total. Interestingly, on the third line of page 4, I think the second redaction has to be "one is" for the sentence to make sense. So whoever did the redaction did a sloppy job, if it was important to hide this information (which I don't believe).
The redactions make it difficult to tell exactly what is going on. But I think OIG is arguing to SSA that they should be screening recipients for fraud using some secret method before the release of benefits, and SSA is saying they either they are using that secret method, or else they aren't using it because the fraud is so low that any erroneously released benefits are recovered through overpayment.
Also there are references to a change in policy. At page 3, it says "beginning in July 2017, SSA policy requires..." At page 9 it says "Finally, given the significance of SSA's policy change..."
I couldn't find any POMS changes in July 2017. There is an emergency message, EM-17021, which indicates SSA had been granted the authority to exchange info with payroll data providers and SSA was developing an online application platform to report title II/XVI wages. Could be related.
There is almost no point to releasing this report. It is almost entirely redacted. Wondering if a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request would work.
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