Congress to
Recess—Action Request
The House and Senate are scheduled to be in
recess from August 6 until after Labor Day. This
is a prime opportunity to try to schedule a
meeting with your Senators and Representative to
discuss how important it is that investigators
retain access to Social Security numbers.
Although they may take a few days for vacation,
most members of Congress will schedule some time
in their local offices to meet with
constituents.
You can locate your member of Congress at
www.house.gov
by typing in your zip code at the top left of
the page. Senators are listed at
www.senate.gov
You can then find their local phone number and
ask for an appointment. If it is impossible to
meet with the Member of Congress, it would still
be valuable to meet with a staff member.
The Message
The House Ways and Means Committee and Energy
and Commerce Committees have both passed bills
(HR 3046/HR 948) that would strictly limit the
ability to obtain Social Security numbers. This
would have a devastating impact on the value of
databases used to locate individuals or to
ascertain their true identities. We suggest that
you urge the House members to support an
exception in these bills similar to the
following one that was adopted by the Senate
Committee on Commerce in S-1178:
“….a social security account number may be sold,
provided, displayed, or
obtained by any person —
to the extent necessary to identify or locate
missing or abducted children, witnesses to an
ongoing or potential civil or criminal law suit,
criminals, criminal suspects, parties to
lawsuits, parents delinquent in child support
payments, organ and bone marrow donors, pension
fund beneficiaries, missing heirs, and for
similar legal, medical, or family related
purposes, if the person selling, providing,
displaying, or obtaining the social security
account number does not do so for marketing
purposes.”
When speaking to Senators, please ask them to
support that exception in S-1178 and in any
bills that may attempt to limit the sale of
Social Security numbers.
I’m attaching a short document that can be given
to the Member of Congress that lists some of the
ways in which private investigators use Social
Security numbers. Your experiences, however, are
more important as you tell the elected officials
about how you have used access to the number to
assist clients. The judicial system is best
served when courts have access to all relevant
data.
Please e-mail me with any results of the
meetings so that I may follow up with Congress
here in Washington. Let’s not miss this prime
opportunity. Time is of the essence.
Larry Sabbath
(703) 426-1976
lsabbath@lobbyist4u.com
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