NoSSN - Statement of Ron Paul on the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act (HR 220)

Statement of Ron Paul on the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act (HR 220)
Before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee
March 15, 2001

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2000 Congressional
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Project FREEDOM
Opening Page

Government Reform and Oversight Committee: May 18, 2000

Statement of Ron Paul on the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act (HR 220)
Before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and
Technology of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee

Statement of HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on my legislation,
HR 220, the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act. I greatly appreciate
your commitment to the issue of personal privacy. Protecting privacy
is of increasing importance to the American people. Since I have
introduced this bill, my office has received countless calls of
support from Americans all across the country who are opposed to the
use of uniform identifiers. I have also worked with a bipartisan
coalition of members on various efforts to protect Americans from the
surveillance state, such as the banking regulators "know your
customer" scheme, and the attempt by the Post Office to violate the
privacy of all Americans who use Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies
(CMRAs).

The Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act represents a comprehensive
attempt to protect the privacy of individual citizens from government
surveillance via the use of standard identifiers. Among the
provisions of the legislation is one repealing those sections of the
1996 Immigration Act that established federal standards for state
drivers' licenses and those sections of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the
Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform
standard health identifier. As I am sure my colleagues know, the
language authorizing a national ID card was repealed in last years
Transportation Appropriations bill and language prohibiting the
expenditure of funds to develop a personal medical identifier has
been included in the past two Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations
bills. These victories where made possible by the thousands of
Americans who let their elected representatives know that they were
opposed to federally-mandated identifiers.

Perhaps the most significant portion of HR 220 prohibits the use of
the Social Security number for purposes not related to Social
Security. For all intents and purposes, the Social Security number is
already a national identification number. Today, in the majority of
states, no American can get a job, open a bank account, get a
drivers' license, receive a birth certificate for one's child without
presenting their Social Security number. So widespread has the use of
the Social Security number become that a member of my staff had to
produce a Social Security number in order to get a fishing license!
As a test of citizen resistance, the Census bureau asked 21,000
households to report their Social Security number on their census
form. One of the reasons the Census bureau is interested in the
Social Security number is as a key to unlock information held by other
government agencies.

Since the creation of the Social Security number in 1935, there have
been almost 40 congressionally-authorized uses of the Social Security
number as an identification number for non-Social Security programs.
Many of these uses, such as the requirement that employers report the
Social Security number of new employees to the "new hires data base,"
have been enacted in the past few years.

Such Congressional actions do not reflect the intent of the Congress
that created the Social Security system as that Congress in no way
intended to create a national identifier. In fact, Congress never
directly authorized the creation of the Social Security number --
they simply authorized the creation of an "appropriate record keeping
and identification scheme." The Social Security number was actually
the creation of the Internal Revenue Service!

The Social Security number did not become a popular identifier until
the 1960s. In response to concerns about the use of the Social
Security number, Congress passed the Privacy Act of 1974, because, as
stated within the act itself, "The Congress finds the opportunities
for an individual to secure employment, insurance and credit and his
right to due process and other legal protections are endangered by
the misuse of certain information systems."

The Privacy Act of 1974 states that "It shall be unlawful for any
Federal, State or local government agency to deny any individual any
right, benefit or privilege provided by law because of such
individual's refusal to disclose his Social Security number." This is
a good and necessary step toward protecting individual liberty.

Unfortunately, the language of the Privacy Act allows Congress to
require the use of the Social Security number at will. In fact, just
two years after the passage of the Privacy Act, Congress explicitly
allowed state governments to use the Social Security number as an
identifier for tax collection, motor vehicle registration and drivers
license identification. When one considers the trend toward the use
of the Social Security number as an identifier, the need for HR 220
becomes clear.

The Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act also contains a blanket
prohibition on the use of identifiers to "investigate, monitor,
oversee, or otherwise regulate" American citizens. Mr. Chairman,
prohibiting the Federal Government from using standard identifiers
will ensure that American liberty is protected from the "surveillance
state." Allowing the federal government to use standard identifiers
to oversee private transactions present tremendous potential for abuse of
civil liberties by unscrupulous government officials.

I am sure I need not remind the members of this Committee of the sad
history of government officials of both parties using personal
information contained in IRS or FBI files against their political
enemies. Imagine the potential for abuse if an unscrupulous
government official is able to access ones complete medical, credit,
and employment history by simply typing the citizens "uniform
identifier" into a database.

This history of abuse of personal information by government officials
demonstrates that the only effective means of guaranteeing Americans
privacy is to limit the ability of the government to collect and
store information regarding a citizens personal matters. The only way
to prevent the government from knowing this information is preventing
them from using standard identifiers.

In addition to forbidding the federal government from creating
national identifiers, this legislation forbids the federal government
from blackmailing states into adopting uniform standard identifiers
by withholding federal funds. One of the most onerous practices of
Congress is the use of federal funds illegitimately taken from the
American people to bribe states into obeying federal dictates.

Certain members of Congress are focusing on the use of the Social
Security number and other identifiers by private businesses. However,
this ignores the fact that the private sector was only following the
lead of the federal government in using the Social Security number as
an ID. In many cases, the use of the Social Security number by
private business is directly mandated by the government, for example,
banks use Social Security numbers as an identifier for their
customers because the federal government required them to use the
Social Security number for tax reporting purposes. Once the federal
government stops using the Social Security number as an identifier,
the majority of private businesses, whose livelihood depends on
pleasing consumers, will respond to their customers demands and stop
using the Social Security number and other standard identifiers in
dealing with them.

I hope that we in Congress would not once again allow a problem
Congress created to become an excuse for disregarding the
constitutional limitations of federal police powers or imposing new
mandates on businesses in the name of "protecting privacy." Federal
mandates on private businesses may harm consumers by preventing
business from offering improved services such as the ability to bring
new products that consumers would be interested in immediately to the
consumers attention. These mandates will also further interfere with
matters that should be resolved by private contracts.

Furthermore, as we have seen with the administrations so-called
"medical privacy protection" proposal, federal "privacy protection
laws" can actually undermine privacy by granting certain
state-favored interests access to ones personal information.

Some may claim that the federal government needs expanded
surveillance powers to protect against fraud or some other criminal
activities. However, monitoring the transactions of every American in
order to catch those few who are involved in some sort of illegal
activity turns one of the great bulwarks of our liberty, the
presumption of innocence, on its head. The federal government has no
right to treat all Americans as criminals by spying on their
relationship with their doctors, employers, or bankers. In fact,
criminal law enforcement is reserved to the state and local
governments by the Constitution's tenth amendment.

Others may claim that the federal government needs the power to
monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more
efficiently. However, in a constitutional republic the people are
never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the job of
government officials a little bit easier. We are here to protect the freedom of
the American people, not to make privacy invasion more efficient.
The main reason Congress should take action to stop the use of
standard identifiers is because the federal government lacks
constitutional authority to force citizens to adopt a universal
identifier for health care, employment, or any other reason. Any
federal action that oversteps constitutional limitations violates
liberty because it ratifies the principle that the federal
government, not the Constitution, is the ultimate judge of its own jurisdiction
over the people. The only effective protection of the rights of
citizens is for Congress to follow Thomas Jefferson's advice and
"bind the federal government) down with the chains of the Constitution."

I once again extend my sincere appreciation to Chairman Horn and the
other members of the Subcommittee for holding this hearing and
express my hope that this hearing begins the process of protecting
the rights of all citizens to conduct their lives free from
government intrusion.

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end

"Give me your four year-olds and in a generation I will build a socialist state ... destroy the family and the society will collapse." -- Vladimir Lenin

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