Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A request to make highly personal Social Security files more easily available to law enforcement is testing how much privacy may be sacrificed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The debate has divided officials within the agency that oversees the nation’s retirement income program.
Currently, the Social Security Administration can share confidential information with law enforcement only in life-threatening circumstances. In those cases, wage and earnings data can go to federal police agencies; Social Security numbers and other information can go to all law enforcement organizations.
The agency’s internal investigator, the inspector general, is pressing to lessen that threshold. He argued the FBI was improperly delayed from getting Social Security numbers, tax information and other data about the hijackers on Sept. 11 because of the prohibitions.
"We believe some permanent authority to assist law enforcement should be enacted," the inspector general, James Huse, wrote in a letter to Congress, arguing that nontax information should be turned over upon the request of police agencies in all felony investigations. In terrorism investigations, he urged that taxpayer data, including wage and earnings information, be included.
His boss, acting Social Security commissioner Larry Massanari, doesn’t want the long-established privacy safeguards to be changed — at least until the matter is thoroughly studied. He said legal requirements to safeguard privacy were quickly met for the Sept. 11 inquiry.
"The success of the (Social Security) program is inherently dependent upon the American public trusting us with their most sensitive and private information, including medical records and tax returns," Massanari wrote Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
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