From: John De Armond
Subject: Re: Is this happening to you???
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 02:02:23 EST
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel

Mickey Mathena wrote:
 
> Was talking to my son last night and he was saying he was checking up
> on getting new fishing license and low and behold was informed he HAD
> to give Social Security number or no license.
 

<snippity>

> If this is wide spread I would suggest you/we all start contacting our
> state and Fed officer holders and make comment on further encroachment
> on all our lives.
> 
> Mickey

Unfortunately this fight is over with and is lost.  The SSN is the
defacto national identification number and it is the worst of all
possible worlds - fairly public, easily forged and doesn't even have
a check digit!

My solution to this is whenever I can, I use an Employer
Identification Number for a dormant company of mine.  The EIN looks
like a SSN but is not.  It is illegal to use an EIN for any purpose
which would involve fraud, such as tax evasion.  But according to my
lawyer, as long as I don't have to give an oath that everything on
the form is truthful to the best of my knowledge, yada yada yada, I
can legally use this method.  I find it very handy because it is
easily remembered and it satisfies the clerk who just wants some
digits to fill in the "SSN" field on the computer screen.

What is doubly frightening is that the SSA no longer issues new SSNs
when a person's identity has been stolen.  If someone gets your SSN
and proceeds to commit fraud, ruining your credit record in the
process, you're screwed.  I have an employee who that happened to
about 5 years ago and she's STILL trying to get her credit (and
life) straightened out.  Especially after seeing this experience, I
don't really care if it is totally legal or not, I'm not going to
use my real SSN except where actually required by federal law.

John