At 12:05 AM 5/11/01 -0700, John Doe wrote:
>The first amendment implies a corollary right not to
>speak recognized by the Supreme Court in NAACP v.
>Alabama, Wooley v. Maynard, and a number of compelled
>speech cases.
This is nonsense. I have a right not to be forced to speak, true, but I
can't be coerced into exercising it. That's called censorship, dimwit.
The U.S. government or its organs or state government have no rights. They
have powers granted to them by the people.
The real problem is the creation of the SSN in the first place.
See also the below.
-Declan
Here is a snippet from the Privacy Journal by Robert Ellis Smith, December
1999 issue, page 7:
In the Courts -- SSNs a Must
Fear about theft of identity is not a valid reason for a professional to
decline to have his Social Security number included on public record
documents. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the risk
of identity theft "does not appear to constitute a more serious invasion...
than many other requirements imposed by the government... the dire
consequences of identity theft must be discounted by the probability of
occurrence." Jack Ferm, a preparer of bankruptcy papers, actually was
willing to provide his Social Security number, but not if it was to be part
of the public court record. The court rejected Ferm's claim that the SSN
requirement violated the Privacy Act of 1974, because it applies only to
the <i>collection</i> of SSNs by government agencies, the public disclosure
of them. Ferm v. U.S. Trustee, 97-16653, also In re: Laorphus Crawford,
97-16646 (9th Cir., Oct. 7).
<End of the snippet>
