My general impression is that secretiveness has increased at Social Security since the 2016 election. If you want proof, look at Social Security's postings of Emergency Messages (EMs). The purpose of EMs is to let employees in the field know about significant changes in agency policy or practice. Through May 21 of this year at least 22 new EMs had been released to agency employees but only two had been released to the public. None has been released to the public since May 21. There might be some good reason to withhold a few of those but the vast majority of EMs aren't sensitive. My guess is that the logic behind withholding these from the public is that the agency can't be called to account for failing to follow its own policies when the public doesn't know what those policies are.
Because of the litigation over the constitutionality of current law that denies SSI to residents of most U.S. territories, there should be individuals attempting to file SSI claims in these territories. What's being done when that happens? How many people in the territories are attempting to file SSI claims? If I were representing clients in Puerto Rico who might be eligible for SSI, I'd certainly be telling them to try to file SSI claims but I'm not representing clients there.
My expectation is that because of the Supreme Court opinion in the Seila Law case there will be litigation over the validity of actions taken by the Social Security Administration while headed by a Commissioner who can only be discharged by the President for cause. Shouldn't the agency be tracking cases where this sort of objection is made? That's what they did earlier in the run-up to and after the Supreme Court decision in Lucia v. SEC on the constitutionality of ALJ appointments.
6 comments:
Seila law...yes, we are tracking in OHO.
I have no doubt that Operations and Office of General Counsel have documented what a CR does when an SSI app is filed in PR. Likely even Systems knows, because MSSICS would need some tweaks to make sure the system handles things right (right being what OGC says should happen to them) down to the language of the denial, if that be the result.
Yeah, a lot of the management folks secretly think that they are James Bond or something. Keeping what they consider secrets makes them feel ever so more important than they actually are in the larger scheme of things.
The failure to share emergency messages and other subregulatory documents (Chief Judge's memos, ARs, AMs, etc.) raises real questions about SSA's compliance with EO 1381, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-promoting-rule-law-improved-agency-guidance-documents/
Maybe some of the documents don't count as guidance documents, but then they should say which exception they fall under and publish the rest. Or just err on the side of publishing them, unless they have truly sensitive information (like how to authenticate documents if they worry that will allow for more skilled identity theft). Very few people will read them, and what are they so afraid of those folks seeing?
Most recent EMs have to do with processing Covid cases and the new ways that SSA can do that expeditiously. It would be easier for some unsavory types to file claims and be paid that would ordinarily be properly denied.
re: anon@8:18pm,
I agree, especially since the agency overall tends to publish vast numbers of policy changes (both minor and major) via internal policy messages rather than just simply updating the public POMS (which takes the agency literally years to bother get around to doing in some cases). They release so many daily that employees are expected to spend a half hour (or more at times) per day reading them.
One thing different about EMs, though, is that they tend overall to have a lot of systems and methods information embedded in with the policy information (which, makes sense, since the EM is not only telling employees what management wants done but also how in systems terms they expect it to be done). The agency has ALWAYS maintained a very strict policy not to publish anything containing information about systems and methods for security and fraud-prevention reasons, so EMs tend not to be published outside the agency's intranet.
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