Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 13:03:04 EST
Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler <comp-privacy-request@PICA.ARMY.MIL>
From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator <comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL>
To: Comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL
Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V1#092
Computer Privacy Digest Fri, 23 Oct 92 Volume 1 : Issue: 092
Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears
Re: SSNs and Grades
Litigation, SSN and IRS
Re: Citibank photo credit card
Re: Posting grades by SSN
(none)
Re: ssn and traffic tickets
Re: question on surrepticious
Re: question on surrepticious
Re: Check or PO only - No cash accepted.
The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the
effect of technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and
gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy
(Moderated). Submissions should be sent to
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Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil
[129.139.160.200].
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 17:29:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Dave Niebuhr, BNL CCD, 516-282-3093" <NIEBUHR@bnlcl6.bnl.gov>
Subject: Re: SSNs and Grades
An instructor for a course I took several years ago went about notifying
the students of their final grades without having to resort to posting
them anywhere except on their official record.
Each student gave the instructor a pre-addressed post card and he would
put the grade on it, sign it, and put it in the mail. Simple and private.
The only ones who knew what I received (A) were those that bothered to
read the thing while it was in the post office and why should I care, it
would be dumb luck to have a person in the postal system delivering mail
who took the same class that I did.
I figure that anything mentioned on a postcard if fair game for
reading anyway.
Dave
Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl
Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093
------------------------------
From: p-hurley1@tamu.edu
Date: 13 Oct 92 14:53:46 CDT
Subject: Litigation, SSN and IRS
Reply-to: p-hurley1@tamu.edu
Up until a year ago, I had not been claiming my children older than 1
year as dependents because I refuse to get them a SSN. A year ago, I
found out that the President of the Home School Legal Defense
Association (Michael Farris) tried to sue the IRS over its
requirement of SSN's for children. I wrote requesting to be included
in any class action that might be planned. I received three letters
in response. I reproduce the salient one here for your use if you see
fit.
The letter is on letterhead of the Christian Justice Fund:
Dear Friends,
This letter is to advise you of the options regarding the filing
of your income tax return in light of your desire to avoid obtaining
a Social Security number for your children.
First of all, everyone should realize that because of a certain
judge's ruling, it is procedurally impossible for us all to join
together in one suit. It is also impossible for us to do a separate
lawsuit for each of the families. We do not have enough resources,
not do I have enough time. We are going to pursue one or perhaps two
lawsuits to set a precedent for all families.
As an attorney, I cannot tell you to violate the law. However, I
can tell you the probable consequences of different courses of
action. All of these options assume that you do not obtain a Social
Security number for your children.
1. You can file your return and not claim your children as
dependents. This is totally safe. However, this costs you a
substantial amount of money *and* will not put you in a good position
to challenge the legality of this requirement.
2. You can file your return and claim your children. If you do
this, simply leave the sections regarding Social Security numbers
blank. This positions you to challenge the IRS requirement. These are
the risks: 1) You could receive a penalty of either $5 or $50 per
child; 2) Your dependency deduction could be disallowed; 3) You could
be audited and required to prove that the child is truly your
dependent; or 4) You could be criminally prosecuted.
Everyone that I have talked to (including attorneys for the
Justice Department) agree that criminal prosecution is extremely
unlikely. The most likely outcome is #3.
3. You can file your return, claim your children, and submit a
$5 penalty per child with your return. I would not recommend this
option. However, see #4 which follows.
4. If you receive a notice assessing a $5 penalty, pay it. We
then have you in a position to sue for a refund of the $5 and test
the legality of the rule.
It is my opinion that a challenge to this law cannot be mounted
unless a number of families choose option #2. There is a strong
likelihood that the IRS will only require us to prove dependency. If
this is the case, no lawsuit will be required. Also, we may choose
not to proceed if they simply assess $5 penalties.
I hope this answers your questions. Please _write_ if you have
further questions.
Sincerely,
Michael P. Farris
Philip Hurley "It is absurd to say that you are
T.A.E.X. especially advancing freedom when you only
Computer Technology use free thought to destroy free will."
(409) 845-9689 -- Chesterton
p-hurley1@tamu.edu I, too, disclaim.
------------------------------
From: dcg5662@hertz.njit.edu (Dave Grabowski (KxiK))
Subject: Re: Citibank photo credit card
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 01:25:38 GMT
In article <comp-privacy1.91.11@pica.army.mil> rodger@Cadence.COM (Rodger Hughes) writes:
>Dave Grabowski <dcg5662@hertz.njit.edu> writes:
>
>>In article <comp-privacy1.83.6@pica.army.mil> usenet_interface@almaden.ibm.com writes:
>>>
>>>I am a late comer to this group...so...
>>>
>>>Has there been a discussion about Citibank's commercial where they state
>>>that their CC's are the most secure?
>
>> Actually, I doubt that thieves would actually take the time to put
>>your CC# on their card. There are LOTS of easier ways to make credit
>>card purchases (I know.). Citibank claims that their cards are more
>>"secure" for you, but in actuality, is seems to be a benefit for THEM.
>>If your card is stolen, you are responsible for, at the most, $50. Big
>>companies, like Citibank, probably wouldn't even make you pay that. So,
>>supposing your card was stolen, and someone used it, it wouldn't hurt
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>you ANYWAY. Citibank is actually protecting themselves, but is selling
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>>it on the premise that it will protect YOU.
>
>>-Dave
>
>And who do you think pays for all the credit card fraud? Can you
>say membership fees, outrageous interest rates etc...? I knew you could.
>
1) Get a credit card with a small (or nonexistant) membership fee.
They do exist. Actually, CitiBank is only $20/year. 2) Interest rates?
Pay your bill on time.
-Dave
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kappa Xi Kappa - Over & Above! dcg5662@hertz.njit.edu
9 Sussex Ave., Newark, NJ (car theft capital USA) 70721.2222@compuserve.com
------------------------------
Date: 15 Oct 1992 19:13:07 +0000 (GMT)
From: Dick Rinewalt <rinewalt@gamma.is.tcu.edu>
Subject: Re: Posting grades by SSN
Organization: Texas Christian Univ Comp Sci Dept
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Apparently-To: comp-society-privacy@uunet.uu.net
Posting grades is not necessary for a double check on grade reporting.
Alternatives are:
1. At TCU, the Registrar sends each faculty member printouts of the
results of scanning the grade sheets for his/her courses. This provides
the capability of detecting both types of grade reporting errors;
however, not all faculty take the time to check this against the
gradebook.
2. I encourage my students to pick up the graded final exam. This allows
them to know their grades early and seeing their mistakes is part of the
educational experience. Unfortunately, only 10-20% of them do so.
Dick Rinewalt Computer Science Dept Texas Christian Univ
rinewalt@gamma.is.tcu.edu 817-921-7166
------------------------------
From: elee@bonnie.ics.uci.edu
Subject: (none)
Date: 16 Oct 92 18:35:56 GMT
To: comp.society.privacy
From: Eric J. Lee
This is part of the ics131 bboard posting assignment.
In an article from keith.willis@almac.co.uk, Keith discusses whether
or not phone conversations should be allowed to be recorded. I heard
recently that now in the U.S.A., the rule for recording phone conversations
changed so that if either party wishes to record the conversation, he or she
may do so without informing the other party, and without the 15 second
beeping rule. This is a curious decision and though I'm not sure how it was
decided, I am sure it will irritate some people.
This will certainly make court hearings more decidable. Often, a
recorded phone message will be inadmissable as evidence in court because the
person recording the call did not inform the other party. Now, with that
restriction removed, anyone making phone threats will think twice before
doing it. Though this reduces privacy, it upholds truth, for, whatever
happens, however secretive it is, actually happens. Court decisions should
be based on what actually happened, not on how well each party covered their
own tracks.
Eric J. Lee
id 50838415
I'm in John Tillquist's Monday 9:00-9:50 section
------------------------------
From: Victor Bur <fns-nc1!fns-nc1.fns.com!vib@concert.net>
Subject: Re: ssn and traffic tickets
Organization: Fujitsu Network Switching
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 21:14:28 GMT
Apparently-To: mcnc!comp-society-privacy
In article <comp-privacy1.91.10@pica.army.mil> chris.guilmartin@channel1.com (Chris Guilmartin) writes:
>
>Recently a national radio talk show caller related a story which
>occured in Texas whereby his girlfriend received a traffic ticket.
>In filling out the ticket the policeman demanded the girl's SSN. His
>justification apparently was "there's a spot on the ticket for it,
>and it has to be filled in, so you must provide it". While I don't
>live in Texas, and have no direct knowlege of this, this seems like
>an abuse of the SSN.
>
>Does anyone have any further information on this situation? And what
>would the SSN be used for, that a drivers license number couldn't
>serve for?
>
>
>--- WinQwk 2.0b#218
>--
>Channel 1 (R) Cambridge, MA
I don't know whether it is a local "feature" or nationwide, but the pledge
response cards for the last (and still going) United Way fund-raising
Campaign contain a line for SSN. I think it's outrages!
[Moderator's Note: Why? Ignore it and don't give it to them. ._dennis]
Victor
------------------------------
From: Don Simon <infmx!dsimon@uunet.uu.net>
Subject: Re: question on surrepticious
Reply-To: infmx!dsimon@uunet.uu.net
Organization: Louie's Lip-Waxing
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 22:45:20 GMT
Apparently-To: uunet!comp-society-privacy
In article 7@pica.army.mil, keith.willis@almac.co.uk () writes:
>
>
>
> 0005066432@mcimail.com (Tansin A. Darcos & Company) said:
>
>TA> I thought the only time where a call could be recorded without the
>TA> knowledge of the people on the call - even in a federal agency - is
>TA> either if there is a wiretap order from a court or it's a security or
>TA> law enforcement agency such as the FBI, NSA, CIA or other such. This
>TA> agency is not generally a law enforcement agency.
>
>TA> Could someone tell me if I'm wrong and this type of activity is legal?
>
> Certainly in the UK, such unannounced monitoring would be
> illegal without the backing of a court order.
>
> My answering machine has a facility which enables me to to
> tape calls, whether originated or answered by me, but it is
> a legal requirement that the equipment emit a beep, which
> must be audible to both parties to the call, every 15
> seconds. I believe I am also obliged to state to the other
> party that I am recording the call.
>
>
>---
> PQ 2.15 194 "Ford, why have I got this fish in my ear?"
>--
>ALMAC BBS Ltd. 0324-665371
>Dos based USENET access, call for details!
According to US law, prior permission must be obtained from *one* of
the parties involved, ie yourself, when taping a phone conversation.
This is however, not the same as wire-tapping your own phone, which is
illegal without a court-order. The differences between taping a
conversation and wire-tapping have to do with knowledge of parties
involved and the physical way in which the conversation is
intercepted. Taping requires atleast the person on the recording-end
of the phone be aware of the recording...you do not have to tell the
person on the other end of the phone. A wire-tap on the otherhand
implies that neither person involved in the call is aware of the
recording, example husband taps his phone to record his wife's calls
while he is out...that's wire-tapping and illegal without a court order
in the US.
Just some random rabmlings,
don
------------------------------
From: "Cheryl L. Kerr" <bu676@cleveland.freenet.edu>
Subject: Re: question on surrepticious
Date: 22 Oct 1992 15:27:56 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
During a recent legal problem, I was advised by my attorney that
it is completly legal to tape a face-to-face or phone conversation
with out notifying the other party(ies) involved as long as YOU ARE
A PARTY TO THE CONVERSATION (e.g. Only you need to know it is being
taped). Since I wasn't involved in any clandestined work, I didn't
get any legal info on wire taps.
--
Cheryl L. Kerr...........................Cleveland Freenet
bu676@PO.CWRU.EDU
------------------------------
From: "Cheryl L. Kerr" <bu676@cleveland.freenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Check or PO only - No cash accepted.
Date: 22 Oct 1992 15:19:07 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
This seems to be becomming more and more popular amoung businesses.
I work for a division of a community college and we will only accept
PO, Check or MC/VISA/Etc. for payment. Our justification is that
we have no suitable means for securly handling the cash. This
could possible be the reason for UPS as well. It can become a
big headache for their accounting systems in a business that large,
I'm sure. It all doesn't seem right, however. After all, cash
is the ONLY government backed LEGAL tender, no?
--
Cheryl L. Kerr...........................Cleveland Freenet
bu676@PO.CWRU.EDU
------------------------------
End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #092
******************************