More Evidence That We Cannot Trust Our Government With Data

U.S. Database Exposed Social Security Numbers

Our government, especially under the leadership of the Bush administration, has tried to convince us that we can trust them, and all of the various agencies of the executive branch, with the data they are collecting about each of us. Yet, the number of incidents where data, computers and breaches of cyber security continues to mount. We have had breaches of data security within the VA, the IRS, the Social Security Administration, top secret labs in New Mexico, as well as poor grades for supposedly secure networks within the Department of Homeland Security, the Nation Center created by DHS for sharing intelligence data, as well as reported breaches within the NSA.

Yet, we are supposed to buy into the idea that those appointed by Bush and his gang of fascist thugs can protect our information and our civil liberties. But when the nation's top experts are called in to review the setup and network security offered by DHS, IRS, SSA, NSA and other government entities, we keep hear criticism that the vast amount of data is not secure, cannot be shared effectively because of formatting differences and network platform compatibility issues, and the data mining that is being done is ineffective, will not assure quality, and cannot assure us that our civil liberties will not be violated in the process.

These issues are taking a back seat in the current frenzies over the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, our utter failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the latest scandal(s) coming out of the White House, the Department of Justice or elsewhere within the executive branch. Fortunately for the GOP members of Congress, their forty-five minutes of fame for their numerous scandals are also on the back burners. And despite the obvious need for impeachment, no one in the legislative branch seems to have the nerve to push the impeachment agenda. Of course, the Democrat leadership is fast becoming its own worst enemy under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, who just can't seem to understand that ethics was a major reason the Republicans suffered major losses in the last elections.

But it is still nice to know that our identity and accounts within the government are being exposed to anyone and everyone. So far, within the last two years, I have had my personal information released by the VA, the IRS and the SSA. God--and George W. Bush, who thinks of himself as a god--only knows what the DOJ, FBI, NSA and other entities running secret surveillance programs have done to information about me. Not only will they not tell me what information was collected, but they won't tell me what steps are being taken to protect the data collected, who is collecting it, how it is being used, why it is being collected, or how many times these data systems have been breached. Then, too, my accounts with telephone, cable, satellite and cell phone entities are also being surrendered without warrants, probable cause or my consent.

Still, Congress has not acted to reform the laws passed in haste after the events of 9-11, the obvious breach of the laws by the Bush gang, or closed the holes that are being used to collect data in violation of the provisions and protections of the Bill of Rights.

So sleep tight America, your government is keeping an eye on you, and allowing others to do the same. Things are going so well in terms of exposing your private information that even the Agriculture Department has gotten into the business of releasing data to anyone and everyone. Pretty soon we will be charged an extra fee by the corporations we do business with to prevent our information from being released and charged user fees by the government--and all its entities--just to keep our data safe.

One has to wonder what the Democrats are doing in Washington now that they have the helm... and if the answer is "We're holding hearing and meetings," we better find a crew of legislators that are more willing to resolve our issues that hold meetings. Somehow voting for "None of the Above" seems to be the only viable choice for future elections.

The Agriculture Department for years publicly listed Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of people who received financial aid from two of its agencies, raising concerns about identity theft and other privacy violations.

Officials at the department and at the Census Bureau, which maintains the database where the personal information was listed, were evidently unaware that it contained Social Security numbers. The problem was reported to the government last week by a farmer in Illinois who stumbled across the data on the Internet.

“I was bored and typed the name of my farm into Google to see what was out there,” said Marsha Bergmeier, president of Mohr Family Farms in Fairmount, Ill.

The first link in the results was to the Web site of Ms. Bergmeier’s farm. The second was to a site that Ms. Bergmeier had not heard of, FedSpending.org, which has a searchable listing of federal government expenditures. It uses information from the government database.

Ms. Bergmeier said she was able to identify almost 30,000 records in the database that contained Social Security numbers.

“I was stunned,” she said. “The numbers were right there in plain view in this database that anyone can access.”

While there is no evidence that the information has been used improperly, officials at the Agriculture Department and the Census Bureau removed the numbers from the census Web site last week.

Officials said the Agriculture Department’s use of Social Security numbers in a public database was common practice when the database was first created, before online identify theft was a well-known problem.

Department officials said that more recently when government agencies began reviewing public databases to remove personal information like Social Security numbers, they failed to notice the numbers’ being published in this instance. Terri Teuber, a department spokeswoman, said the agency was notifying those whose Social Security numbers were on the site. She said the agency planned to contract with a company to monitor the credit reports of those whose numbers were disclosed.

“We took swift action when this was brought to our attention and took the information down,” Ms. Teuber said. “We want to make sure that it doesn’t exist on any publicly available Web site.”

The department said its review of the database showed that 63,000 people could be at risk.