From
here:
The Homeland Security Department is seeking authority from Congress to mine databases containing Social Security numbers in order to identify illegal immigrants and the employers who knowingly hire them, according to senior department officials.
You have to read this entire article before you finally get a handle on what's being proposed here.
Essentially, the DHS wants Congress to pass a law allowing it to
freely access the Social Security Administration database. This information will then suddenly lead to arrests of both Americans employing illegal aliens as well as the illegal aliens themselves.
But this is the key paragraph:
[DHS chief Michael] Chertoff said investigators learned that IFCO was employing illegal immigrants through a tip. Investigators obtained warrants to check Social Security databases and discovered that more than half of the company's employees were using invalid or mismatched numbers.
He said the operation points to the need for the legislation so investigators could be proactive rather than wait for tips.
In other words, DHS already has the power to search through the SSA database when it has a warrant to do so. Otherwise it is currently illegal.
DHS says it wants to be "proactive" and not wait for tips. Indeed. But "waiting for tips" is not the only way to find people breaking the law. Ordinary law enforcement techniques such as investigation lead to gathering evidence necessary to go to a judge and get a warrant issued.
On the other hand, it could be argued that free access to the SSA database could turn up thousands of "mismatched" or invalid Social Security numbers, which would conceivably lead to arrests of people employing illegal aliens as well as the aliens themselves. How effective this would be has never been demonstrated. Nor has the possibility of employers of illegal aliens changing tactics to defeat this technique.
One such tactic to defeat the DHS oversight is simply not to hire workers on the books at all, which will probably lead to more mistreatment of undocumented workers. Think about this. Every single worker employed with a fake SSN (esp one belonging to an American citizen) is paying SSA taxes but will never collect the benefits. If employers start to keep their workers entirely off the books, that income to the SS trust fund will disappear.
Let's imagine that Congress does pass such a law and DHS runs their magic fingers through the SSA database and makes a few thousand arrests. A year or two later, the employers will find some other tactic to avoid arrest and the DHS' conviction rate will go way down. But the power to free range through the SSA database will indubitably remain intact, long after it stops being effective at deterring the hiring of illegal aliens.
As every American knows, your Social Security number is tied to almost everything from your health insurance to your credit cards to your job to your driver's license (in some states) to your video rental card. It's the closest thing in existence to a national ID card and just about every single person, citizen or foreigner (illegal or legal), has one.
In fact, since 1986 even children have to get SSN's. If their parents don't register them, they can't claim the children as dependents on their tax returns. The net is closing and almost no American can escape being in the SSA's database. It's almost impossible to exist in America without leaving your SSN in a wake behind you. Once the government can track you that way, you're never out from under their watchful eye.
What DHS wants is unfettered access to this database, the mother of all databases about people in America. And they want to search through it without any need for either a warrant or as part of a criminal investigation. They are trying to shoehorn this access based on a hot button issue - stopping illegal immigration - but nothing will stop them from using it for whatever purpose they want.
Believe it or not, right now your SSA information is actually rather well protected from law enforcement agencies. Everyone from the FBI to your local cop shop cannot get access to your SSA information without getting a warrant. I'm not saying your SSA is in a leakproof vault but in general what goes into the SSA computers STAYS in the SSA computers and doesn't get passed around.
The Orwell fetishists are in a fit of pique as New Hampshire has thrown a monkey wrench in the proposed national ID card plan called "Real ID". Selling a RFID-chipped hologram government ID is quite difficult in this current political climate and the Ministry of Truth people know it. But what better way to do an end run around this than gain access to the mother of all databases, the Social Security Administration?
The legislation Chertoff is referring to is known as the "Employment Eligibility Verification System", several versions of which are making their way through Congress. One of the versions is in that hideous immigration bill that so many people have been protesting in the streets against.
The versions all contain language similar to this:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, nothing in this subsection shall be construed to permit or allow any department, bureau, or other agency of the United States Government to utilize any information, database, or other records assembled under this subsection for any purpose other than the enforcement and administration of the immigration laws, the Social Security Act, or any provision of Federal criminal law.
Yeah. We all know how that little highlighted phrase kept FISA intact, don't we? And "any provision" of federal criminal law can be stretched to mean almost anything.
In case you were wondering, this Employment Eligibility Verification System program will apply to citizens and non-citizens alike.
Cross-posted from the doubleplusungood crimethink website Flogging the Simian
Peace