Quote:
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Originally Posted by petek
Ron, ... you've got a full head of steam!  |
Steam is just hot air...
Jamo,
Putting a photo on an SS card will give you similar problems as with drivers licences and the like. They are all forgeable. There are certainly things, as you mention, that make forging more difficult/expensive, and will progressively limit the ease and availability of passable fakes. Those are good ideas and should be implemented. Even though there are still ways to get around a photo SS card we should still do it for exactly the reasons that both of us have described.
Having a biometric as part of that ID package would make it even tougher still as it does not rely on something that can be forged with any degree of ease. I know that many on the left don't want to do this, but I would rather fix the problem than coddle them. But I find it interesting that you complain about how bad those evil libs are when your precious 'my poo don't stink' GOP has done nothing about this for the last 7 years. Even before that - it could have been an interesting voter issue if Clinton had vetoed a bill doing exactly what you want. A pity we never got to find out.
I don't disagree with you regarding your discrimination case. Your position on it makes absolute sense as far as I am concerned. However, when you get right down to it - you really only have other lawyers to blame. Its laws like the ones you describe that often give all lawyers a bad name.
And as far as carrying passports around I do not carry mine on a daily basis. I also do not carry my SS card around. Do you? The passport thing is happening because people always wait until the last minute, and most people are not even aware of the changes regarding ID to visit our friends to the north and south. So when everyone submits their application or renewal and they ALL have to have it within 30 days - what do you think is going to happen? If you required a new photo SS card by date x then the exact same thing would happen, only it would be on an even bigger scale as it would not affect just the people who want to sample the homegrown Molson and tequila.
Now, on to network security. Go read some of the GAO reports on information security in our government. You should be smart enough to understand that just because the SSA DB has not been hacked (that we know of) does not mean that it will not be. Most large companies have restricted access to things like personnel files and government access. That would not always be the case with a lettuce grower who writes his SSA login info on a sticky attached to the side of his monitor. The individual PC is also more likely to be virus infected. Do you really want a zombie (other than the ones currently employed there) running around in the SSA system?
But thats just my personal opinion after having spent my entire professional life (save 8 months) working to try and make voice and data systems as bulletproof as possible, though I'm sure we could always get advice on secure networks from a lawyer who can't tell the difference between a packet sniffer and a panty sniffer.
Steve