Man Arrested For Threatening Ann Arbor Office

     From a WDIV in Detroit:

Federal investigators say Daniel Norton is a dangerous man who may have been planning a mass murder and escape into the wilderness.

The Ypsilanti man was out on bond for making violent threats against workers at an Ann Arbor Social Security office. Then, on Wednesday, Homeland Protective Services looked in the trunk of his car and found an arsenal of weapons similar to an AR-15 assault rifle, body armor, ammunition, a generator and meals ready to eat like the ones used by the military....

Norton allegedly called into the Ann Arbor office saying if he did not receive benefits for heart medicine he would have a tactical response. He faxed the office an extensive litany of alleged expert certificates in weaponry and combat. ...

Information Sharing Missions Which Support Homeland Security?

     Social Security is advertising two Intelligence Operations Specialist jobs in Woodlawn, MD. According to USAJobs:

This position [actually positions] is located in the Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Budget, Finance and Management (DCBFM), Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness (OSEP), Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP). Once selected for this important position at SSA, the incumbent will serve as an Intelligent Operations Specialist responsible for complex assignments involving defensive counterintelligence (CI) and information coordination with a broad set of Communities of Interest (COIs) to establish and maintain SSA's defensive CI operations, collaboration, and intelligence and information sharing missions which support homeland security.

     Social Security certainly needs defensive counterintelligence to protect its data but the "information sharing missions which support homeland security" part concerns me. Just how much data is Social Security sharing with homeland security? For that matter, is anything being shared with NSA?

Anonymous Contact Form Functioning Again

     The anonymous contact form for this blog is functioning again. It had gone down when the service I had used previously suddenly went belly up. It's working again with a new service.

Allegation Of SSI Fraud Involved In Cleveland Kidnapping

     From some television station in Cleveland that doesn't post its call letters on its website:

Sources confirm a federal probe is underway into thousands of dollars in social security income that may have been illegally obtained while Cleveland kidnapping victim Michelle Knight was held hostage.

The social security income is  most likely in the form of supplemental security income provided for adults and children with low income and who have disabilities.

Sources said the Office of Inspector General at the Social Security Administration has been conducting an "open investigation." If there is sufficient proof of a crime, the findings will be turned over to the U.S. Attorneys Office for prosecution.

Knight was described by family members as having a mild disability and was the mother of a young son at the time of her disappearance.

It's not know who was behind allegedly profiting from the social security income during the 10-year period when Knight was held at Ariel Castro's Seymour Avenue house.

Replace "Mental Retardation" With "Intellectual Disability"

     From a notice in the Federal Register posted today by the Social Security Administration:

We are replacing the term ``mental retardation'' with ``intellectual disability'' in our Listing of Impairments (listings) ... This change reflects the widespread adoption of the term ``intellectual disability'' by Congress, government agencies, and various public and private organizations.

Op Ed Says Social Security Disability Is A "Monster"

     From an op ed in the East Valley Tribune:

Social Security Disability Insurance is turning into a monster. It has experienced exponential growth, much like other big government entitlement programs. As a consequence, it threatens to run out of money by 2016. Worse, it weakens our economy and has become yet another dark cloud over our financial future. ...

Some of the growth can be explained by the aging of the working population and an increase in women with sufficient work history to become eligible. But the real culprit is the design of the program itself.

In 1984, Congress significantly broadened eligibility and included coverage for more subjective problems like back pain and mood disorders. The rolls begin to fill with sufferers from these hard-to-disprove maladies which now draw more payments than diseases like cancer, heart disease and provable musculoskeletal disorders. ...

SSDI is yet one more iteration of the same old story — a government social welfare program, founded on the best intentions, that in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats morphs into a wasteful blob. The administration of SSDI over the years has worked harder at getting workers into the program in than in getting them back to work. ...

As Ronald Reagan would say, there is a solution that is simple, but not easy. If we privatized SSDI, we could reduce costs sharply.

Private disability insurers, needless to say, don’t just shovel money out the door. They’re highly motivated first to determine if claimants are truly injured or just wish they were. They also put great emphasis on programs helping people return to work. As a result, they typically return about 20 percent of claimants to work each year, a rate 40 times that achieved by government.

Change Reopening Rules?

     From today's Federal Register:

We are requesting information from the public regarding whether and how we should change our rules of administrative finality. These rules govern when we can reopen and revise a determination or decision that has become final and is no longer subject to administrative or judicial review. ...

We are considering changing our rules of administrative finality for a variety of reasons:

1. We take our responsibility as effective stewards of the trust funds very seriously. Modifying our rules would enable us to take corrective action on more cases, and could decrease the amount of improper payments that we make. 
2. Our current rules are complex to administer. The fact that our rules under title II and title XVI contain different timeframes for reopening for good cause can result in confusion for our adjudicators and the public, particularly in situations where an individual is concurrently receiving benefits under title II and title XVI of the Act. 
3. The current rules may prevent us from making changes regardless of the possible outcome for the individual. For example, if an individual presents or we discover new and material evidence after the time period that would allow us to reopen, we cannot take corrective action and revise the determination or decision. Modifying our rules to change certain timeframes for reopening may enable us to take corrective actions on more cases. 
4. The Office of the Inspector General has recommended that we review our rules on administrative finality to find ways that will allow us to correct more erroneous payments. 
5. Some of our administrative finality rules have not been revised in sixty years. Over the years, there has been an increase in our workloads and the complexity of our programs. Updating the rules would allow us to reflect these changes. 
6. Finally, modifying our current rules would enable us to streamline and simplify our rules on administrative finality. We believe this would allow us to operate more efficiently in a challenging, limited-resource environment.

SSA Employee Sentenced To Five Years In Prison

     From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

A former Social Security Administration worker caught on camera masturbating to child pornography while on the clock has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Caught with a staggering 3,772 photos and videos showing children being sexually assaulted, Thomas Barrett Jr. was investigated after his Internet trolling for child porn brought a computer virus onto a Social Security network.

Investigators found Barrett, 50, had been searching for child porn on his work computer in November and set up a camera watching his work station, located at the Social Security Administration’s Seattle office.

Shortly thereafter, Barrett was recorded fondling himself while viewing photos of a man sexually assaulting a young girl. Prosecutors noted Barrett appeared to bounce between the child porn and his actual work in an apparent effort to hide the rape photos from his coworkers.