People born after December 1, 1964 could reportedly be affected by the REAL ID Act — rules wanted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requiring states to issue REAL IDs. In the government’s desire to gain complete control of every American’s rights and liberties under the guise of ‘the war on terror,’ people born after that date, as well as every other American citizen, should be concerned with what the government will do with their data, not to mention the Big Brother aspects of it.
To add to the complete incompetence of how the government handles your personal information, a report from The Washington Post released earlier this month detailing how more personal identification is available on government web sites that provides a wealth of information ripe for picking — if you’re an identity thief. Full Social Security numbers of untold numbers of Americans can be easily found in file rooms and on web sites run by the government.
Estimates from The Federal Trade Commission show that 8.3 million Americans were victims if identity theft in 2005, the most recent data currently available. Social Security numbers can be mined easily in the government’s own records, potentially creating social insecurity for millions of people.
Social Security numbers are readily available in many courthouses — in land records, criminal and civil case files, as well as numerous government web sites that offer easily accessible public documents with a few mouse clicks.