Privacy rights' days may be numbered

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 17, 1998 | by Ron Paul

One cannot read a newspaper these days without the Clinton administration or Congress proposing some new way to track Americans from the cradle to the grave. In the ideal world of the big-government proponent, we would not be allowed to go to the store, board a plane or see a doctor without our federally approved papers.

Whether it is a national driver's-license requirement buried in immigration legislation or the standard, unique health-care identifier required under a health-care reform bill, our precious right to privacy is under attack.

While my Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act (HR4217) stops the national driver's license from taking effect, and my Patient Privacy Act (HR4281) will prevent the health-care identifier from invading our medical records, Americans must be aware that those who want to give government power to track us from cradle to grave already have the Social Security number as their tool of choice.

And make no mistake about it, the Social Security number has become just that. For all intents and purposes, it is a national identification number by which the federal government seeks to track information regarding every U.S. citizen. It is for this reason that several months ago I introduced the Privacy Protection Act (HR3261).

Anyone who doubts that we are well on the way to using the Social Security number as a universal identifier need only look back to 1996, when two major pieces of legislation were passed leading this nation down the path toward the national ID. The first was the welfare-reform bill, which forces businesses to report the Social Security number of every new employee to the federal government for recording in a national database. The second was the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which required that the Department of Transportation implement standards for state driver's licenses with penalties for violators.

Perhaps the most disturbing abuse of the Social Security number is the congressionally authorized rule forcing parents to get a Social Security number for their newborn children in order to claim them as dependents. Forcing parents to register their newborn children with the state is more like something out of the nightmare of George Orwell than the dreams of a free republic that inspired the nation's founders.

This is not an isolated incident. In fact, since the creation of the Social Security number in 1934, there have been almost 40 congressionally authorized uses of the Social Security number as an identification number for non-Social Security programs! Abuse of the Social Security system also occurs at the state level. In many states -- thanks to federal law -- one cannot get a driver's license, apply for a job or even receive a birth certificate for one's child without presenting their Social Security number to a government bureaucrat. Just a couple of months ago 210 of my colleagues voted to allow states to require citizens to show their Social Security numbers in order to vote. Since the Social Security number is part of a federal program created by Congress, it is Congress' responsibility to ensure it is not used to violate the privacy of America's citizens.

I am proud to be the author of the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act to stop a national-ID system from taking place. But we should not be fooled into thinking that the coming national ID is the only threat to our privacy. America already has a de facto national identification number in the Social Security number, which comes close to providing the federal government with the ability to track all citizens from cradle to grave.

The Social Security number was created to administer the Social Security system and nothing else. We must restore the integrity of the system by restoring the integrity of the accounts. That only will occur when we rein in the use of the account numbers and secure the privacy of the people; the purpose of the Privacy Protection Act.

Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Paul represents the 14th District of Texas.