SSN Conspiracy

This morning on The Roland Via Show, a man called in and shared a story about Social Security Numbers and the early concern over national ID numbers. He remembered as a child that adults were vocal about their dislike of the idea of having a national identification number.

Back in the '50s, he said, one would apply for a social security number just before their 18th birthday! They had no use for it until then.

Fast forward 50 years and a child can't leave the hospital without applying for one. Not only is a number attached to us at birth, it's a number digitally ingrained in other items we carry such as a passport or military ID. We are a number - and in the name of safety and security, we can be tracked through scanners and satellites throughout the world.

Andrew Schulman of the Privacy Foundation wrote an interesting piece regarding the SSN conspiracy.

But even someone who can laugh at the fears and conspiracy theories that met the introduction of the SSN has to admit today that "the early critics were at least close to being correct in their predictions that the numbers would become all-purpose identifiers, despite the assurances of the supporters that it would not happen" (Max Skidmore, Social Security and Its Enemies, 1999, p. 48). The SSN has become an all-purpose identifier.