Political Quotes

“This amendment will not kill the bill but simply ensure that it will not exacerbate the risks of identity theft or misuse of consumer data. Mr. Speaker, a Social Security number may be the single most important piece of government-issued identification that a U.S. citizen can have. H.R. 5332 takes that single most important piece of identification and increases its overuse, which will have negative consequences for consumers. In the digital age, relying on one number that defines each of us has made us extremely vulnerable to identity theft. Someone can use your Social Security number to open credit cards, take loans in your name, and destroy your credit. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, identity theft now affects between 500,000 and 700,000 people annually. Victims often do not discover the crime until months after its occurrence. As we speak, Washington State is working to recover more than $500 million in unemployment benefits paid to criminals who used stolen identities to file claims during the coronavirus pandemic. These attacks on data will only escalate. We are in a new era of economic and data warfare and creating a common node of exploitation, a Social Security number, in a centralized location will advance bad actors' ability to infiltrate our data. When your Social Security number is exposed and sold through nefarious means, it is extremely difficult to simply go get a new one.…”