Wayne Allard: “this amendment deals with identity theft. As we heard from the 9/11 Commission, being able to secure our identity…”

“this amendment deals with identity theft. As we heard from the 9/11 Commission, being able to secure our identity process is extremely important for the national security of this country. The 9/11 Commission suggested that we needed to do more to protect against identity theft and that was part of the problem with the terrorists who were coming into this country. So my amendment is very pertinent to the subject of this particular piece of legislation. One of the key items in that report is that we break down the stovepipe between the agencies so we can have some enforcement. This amendment tries to break down the stovepipe between Social Security and Homeland Security. Homeland Security, in checking for identity theft, is not able to get that information from Social Security; Social Security is not able to provide it because of a current law. This amendment addresses that problem. So it is my hope we can get this adopted. I have called it up, and I have made previous statements on this particular amendment. It is important. If we have somebody who is using the same name and Social Security number, we do not have any way of finding out about it unless it shows up on the Social Security side. So we need to be sure we can break down that stovepipe so we can have better security for this country. That is what my amendment is all about.”