Craig Burkholder
Opening a Bank Account Without a SSN
Tue May 10, 2005 05:11
64.140.158.18
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Opening a Bank Account Without a SSN
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 00:48:34 -0600
From: heroay@logonisp.com heroay@logontx.net
Opening a Bank Account Without a SSN
Hi, Just wanted to drop you a line to let you know about a recent small victory in the no-SSN corner.
I recently tried to open a bank account with my local bank , and when they asked for a SSN, I informed them that I didn't have one. They flatly refused and said that without a SSN that they absolutely could NOT open an account of any kind. I then proceeded thus to convince them that they were in the wrong:
1) I informed them that I had terminated my SSN legally in accordance with 20 CFR 3 A7 404.1905 and
2) I informed them that the bank could not be held legally responsible by anyone for failing to obtain a SSN from me pursuant to 31 CFR 103.34(a)(1) and
3) I informed them that under the Internal Revenue Code Section 6041, that they were not even required to provide any taxpayer identification numbers on the Form 1099 that they file with the IRS at the end of the year, and
4) I informed them that pursuant to 26 CFR 301.6109-1(c) that they were under no legal obligation to obtain a SSN from me, and
5) I informed them that 42 USC 408 makes it a FELONY to use threat, duress, or coercion to try to force a person by fear or deceit to provide his SSN in an unlawful manner.
After a brief meeting with the banks controller and legal counsel, I received a phone call stating that I would be allowed to open a checking account. Please pass this information along to your readers, in hopes that it may help someone else who may find themselves in this situation.
Craig Burkholder
Harrisonburg, VA
----------------------
The Social Security Number
... does not require a person to have a Social Security number (SSN) to live and work in the United States, ...
Bill would push driver's license with chip
To: apfn@apfn.org (apfn@apfn.org )
By Dee Ann Divis
UPI Science and Technology Editor
From the Science & Technology Desk
Published 5/1/2002
WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- Legislation to standardize state-issued driver's licenses across the United States, and to mandate that those licenses carry a computer chip and incorporate some kind of unique identifier such as a fingerprint, will be introduced in Congress on Wednesday.
The Driver's License Modernization Act of 2002, sponsored by Reps. Jim Moran, D-Va., and Tom Davis, R-Va., also directs that the chip be capable of accepting software for other applications, including those of private companies.
The objective of the legislation is to prevent identity fraud and enhance national security by making driver's licenses a better way to establish identity. The use of a fingerprint, for example, would make it harder for someone to steal and use the card.
The bill would also mandate the establishment of standards for documents accepted by states to better establish the identity of the person applying for a driver's license or non-driver ID card.
"The intent of this legislation is to correct flaws in the driver's license standard that states currently have," Moran's spokesman, Dan Drummond, told United Press International.
"Right now there are inconsistent requirements between the states for initial identity verification. There's also insufficient verification of identity documents that people present when they go to get a license."
The bill would also earmark $315 million in federal funds to help pay for the transition to the new licenses and to set up links between state computer systems. Linking the computers is necessary, proponents say, so that states can check if the person applying for a driver's license was denied a license in another state.
These provisions in the bill track closely with a proposal by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, which has long supported standardized licenses and has been pushing to set criteria for "breeder" documents like birth certificates and to link state computer systems.
The total cost of the links and other enhancements could be substantial. In 1997 the Social Security Administration published a report saying that the cost to issue an enhanced Social Security card, an idea similar in many ways to the enhanced driver's licenses, would range from $3.8 million to $9.2 billion, depending on the type of card.
Issuing a Social Security card with a computer chip and a biometric identifier to 277 million people was estimated to cost $7.3 billion, a figure deemed "reasonable" by the General Accounting Office in 1998. The AAMVA proposal would cover some 250 million people, including Canadians, in the system.
One aspect of the new bill that may not mesh well with AAMVA's vision, however, is the use of the driver's license for other than driver identification. Jay Maxwell, AAMVA executive director, told UPI at a mid-April conference, that dual-use cards can create a problem with who owns the license and its use for driving enforcement.
What would happen, said Maxwell if a policeman had to take your driver's license and it was also your ATM and credit card?
Such a problem would only impact the worst drivers, stressed Shane Ham, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Progressive Policy Institute, who said that this was a very small number of users. He added that there might be other ways around the problem.[so why do we need this national ID card?]
"In theory the cards could also be structured in such a way that revoking your driving privileges is just a change that is downloaded onto the chip itself without actually yanking the card back," said Ham.
He also stressed that use of the enhanced driver's license for private-sector services is strictly voluntary.
"It would be completely optional if the card holder wanted to put something else on their driver's license," said Ham. "As far as anyone's concerned, you could pretend that the chip was not there."
"If the purpose of this card is domestic security or it is national security or it is to screen terrorists, then there is no reason for it to be designed from the beginning to be interoperable with private sector entities," pointed out Lee Tien, senior staff attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"The real thrust of the private-sector interoperability is so that the ID card or driver's license will be even more useful to commercial entities in terms of tracking consumers, doing consumer profiling, telemarketing -- all those kinds of things that people currently consider to be an invasion of privacy," Tien said.
The density of information on the cards makes them a target, a "honey pot" for people trying to steal data, said Ari Schwartz, associate director at the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology. Supposedly secure chips on smart cards have already been hacked, said Schwartz.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
http://www.atgpress.com/privacy/pri019.htm
Subject: Opening a Bank Account Without a SSN
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 00:48:34 -0600
From: heroay@logonisp.com heroay@logontx.net
Opening a Bank Account Without a SSN
Hi, Just wanted to drop you a line to let you know about a recent small victory in the no-SSN corner.
I recently tried to open a bank account with my local bank , and when they asked for a SSN, I informed them that I didn't have one. They flatly refused and said that without a SSN that they absolutely could NOT open an account of any kind. I then proceeded thus to convince them that they were in the wrong:
1) I informed them that I had terminated my SSN legally in accordance with 20 CFR 3 A7 404.1905 and
2) I informed them that the bank could not be held legally responsible by anyone for failing to obtain a SSN from me pursuant to 31 CFR 103.34(a)(1) and
3) I informed them that under the Internal Revenue Code Section 6041, that they were not even required to provide any taxpayer identification numbers on the Form 1099 that they file with the IRS at the end of the year, and
4) I informed them that pursuant to 26 CFR 301.6109-1(c) that they were under no legal obligation to obtain a SSN from me, and
5) I informed them that 42 USC 408 makes it a FELONY to use threat, duress, or coercion to try to force a person by fear or deceit to provide his SSN in an unlawful manner.
After a brief meeting with the banks controller and legal counsel, I received a phone call stating that I would be allowed to open a checking account. Please pass this information along to your readers, in hopes that it may help someone else who may find themselves in this situation.
Craig Burkholder
Harrisonburg, VA
----------------------
The Social Security Number
... does not require a person to have a Social Security number (SSN) to live and work in the United States, ...
Bill would push driver's license with chip
To: apfn@apfn.org (apfn@apfn.org )
By Dee Ann Divis
UPI Science and Technology Editor
From the Science & Technology Desk
Published 5/1/2002
WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- Legislation to standardize state-issued driver's licenses across the United States, and to mandate that those licenses carry a computer chip and incorporate some kind of unique identifier such as a fingerprint, will be introduced in Congress on Wednesday.
The Driver's License Modernization Act of 2002, sponsored by Reps. Jim Moran, D-Va., and Tom Davis, R-Va., also directs that the chip be capable of accepting software for other applications, including those of private companies.
The objective of the legislation is to prevent identity fraud and enhance national security by making driver's licenses a better way to establish identity. The use of a fingerprint, for example, would make it harder for someone to steal and use the card.
The bill would also mandate the establishment of standards for documents accepted by states to better establish the identity of the person applying for a driver's license or non-driver ID card.
"The intent of this legislation is to correct flaws in the driver's license standard that states currently have," Moran's spokesman, Dan Drummond, told United Press International.
"Right now there are inconsistent requirements between the states for initial identity verification. There's also insufficient verification of identity documents that people present when they go to get a license."
The bill would also earmark $315 million in federal funds to help pay for the transition to the new licenses and to set up links between state computer systems. Linking the computers is necessary, proponents say, so that states can check if the person applying for a driver's license was denied a license in another state.
These provisions in the bill track closely with a proposal by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, which has long supported standardized licenses and has been pushing to set criteria for "breeder" documents like birth certificates and to link state computer systems.
The total cost of the links and other enhancements could be substantial. In 1997 the Social Security Administration published a report saying that the cost to issue an enhanced Social Security card, an idea similar in many ways to the enhanced driver's licenses, would range from $3.8 million to $9.2 billion, depending on the type of card.
Issuing a Social Security card with a computer chip and a biometric identifier to 277 million people was estimated to cost $7.3 billion, a figure deemed "reasonable" by the General Accounting Office in 1998. The AAMVA proposal would cover some 250 million people, including Canadians, in the system.
One aspect of the new bill that may not mesh well with AAMVA's vision, however, is the use of the driver's license for other than driver identification. Jay Maxwell, AAMVA executive director, told UPI at a mid-April conference, that dual-use cards can create a problem with who owns the license and its use for driving enforcement.
What would happen, said Maxwell if a policeman had to take your driver's license and it was also your ATM and credit card?
Such a problem would only impact the worst drivers, stressed Shane Ham, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Progressive Policy Institute, who said that this was a very small number of users. He added that there might be other ways around the problem.[so why do we need this national ID card?]
"In theory the cards could also be structured in such a way that revoking your driving privileges is just a change that is downloaded onto the chip itself without actually yanking the card back," said Ham.
He also stressed that use of the enhanced driver's license for private-sector services is strictly voluntary.
"It would be completely optional if the card holder wanted to put something else on their driver's license," said Ham. "As far as anyone's concerned, you could pretend that the chip was not there."
"If the purpose of this card is domestic security or it is national security or it is to screen terrorists, then there is no reason for it to be designed from the beginning to be interoperable with private sector entities," pointed out Lee Tien, senior staff attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"The real thrust of the private-sector interoperability is so that the ID card or driver's license will be even more useful to commercial entities in terms of tracking consumers, doing consumer profiling, telemarketing -- all those kinds of things that people currently consider to be an invasion of privacy," Tien said.
The density of information on the cards makes them a target, a "honey pot" for people trying to steal data, said Ari Schwartz, associate director at the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology. Supposedly secure chips on smart cards have already been hacked, said Schwartz.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
http://www.atgpress.com/privacy/pri019.htm
- Intruder Struck Computers Used to Run Internet —Cisco Systems network, Tue May 10 05:19
Message Board by American Patriot Friends Network [APFN]
