Protect Your Identity
by Mark Laroi

In a world where compassion has become a real concern to many members of society, it’s good to see people acting out of concern for others. We don’t see a lot of Boy Scouts helping little old ladies across the street anymore, but we do see civic and government groups taking a stand to aid those who’ve fallen on hard times or been subjected to difficulty of some sort.

The bad side of this is that it’s definitely possible to go overboard in our concerns for one, and end up punishing another. One of the decisions that caused exactly this effect was an aspect of the 1996 Welfare Reform Bill which required fishermen and hunters to furnish their Social Security numbers when obtaining a license. This was to help track down “Deadbeat Dads.” I’m all for making men who’ve fathered children live up to their responsibilities, but there were two instant problems created by this action. The first was that written on your S.S. card at the bottom (if you have an older card) are the words “not to be used as identification.” These days you have every credit company, car dealer and newspaper deliverer trying to get you to give them your S.S. number. This led to the second instant problem: widespread identity theft that should never have happened.

No, and I repeat, NO non-governmental agency, and precious few government agencies, has the right to your Social Security number. They may tell you that they do, but you have the right to say no to their request. Because of this action a lot of small shop owners were put in the position of feeling that they had to ask for your S.S. number or else they couldn’t sell you a license. This was far from true. That’s why you could walk into any WalMart to get it and not be asked. If anybody was going to follow such a sweeping regulation it would be them (WalMart), due to the amount of penalties they’d have to face if they didn’t. I know of several smaller shop owners who suffered a blow to their level of income due to protests over this issue.

It wasn’t fair that every fisher/hunter had to put themselves at risk because of the actions of a few. Finally, someone has taken a step to rectify this gross bureaucratic overstep. A recent fax I received from the National Rifle Association last week announced that Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) has introduced a bill to completely eliminate this requirement. “The bill is a companion to H.R. 4144, introduced in the House by Representative Phil English, also of Pennsylvania.”

This comes as good news to many, especially those shop owners who’ve lost the money that gets spent by those folks who buy a handful of stuff along with that new license every year. I know I spend no less than $20 buying extras each time I get my own license, and I’d like to see that money start going back to the shops I frequent. Yes, I stopped getting my license from them because there was no way I was going to start handing out such sensitive information to everyone who asked. It’s just too risky.

Now let’s hope that H.R. 4144 doesn’t contain something that we don’t want to see get passed. Track the progress of this bill here. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to track down what the rest of the bill contains, but I’ll let you know when I do.