Editorial: Taking one more crack at privacy

Monday, Feb. 26, 2001 | 9:49 a.m.

Fortunately, Sen. Richard Shelby isn't easily deterred. Despite Congress' repeated rejections of his efforts to pass privacy rights' legislation, the Alabama Republican is at it once again. This time Shelby is focusing on protecting the sanctity of one of Americans' most personal bits of information -- Social Security numbers. Left in the wrong hands, this personal identifier can create havoc in someone's life, especially if it leads to someone stealing an identity.

Shelby's bill would prohibit financial institutions from selling and buying an individual's Social Security number. Occasionally this violation of privacy gets attention. For instance, last year U.S. Bancorp settled a privacy lawsuit brought by 38 states (including Nevada) after it was disclosed that U.S. Bank had received commissions for selling private information about its customers to marketers. Some of that information included an individual's Social Security numbers, marital status and account balances. While U.S. Bancorp's privacy violations received some public scrutiny, the fact is that these Social Security numbers get traded and sold constantly -- and the public never knows when it happens.

Even if the personal information that is sold isn't used for nefarious purposes, it's still an invasion of privacy to do so without the customer's permission. Financial institutions have long used their political clout to block privacy rights' legislation because they can make a lot of money by selling intimate information about our lives. But no company should have the right to indiscriminately swap such records.

Shelby no longer has as an ally one of the most vocal Democratic supporters of privacy legislation -- Nevada's Richard Bryan, who chose not to seek re-election to the Senate last year. There is a shortage of backbone when it comes to senators willing to stand up to the influential financial services industry on this issue. And there must be times when Shelby feels he is tilting at windmills, but it is important that he carry on. There's overwhelming public support for privacy legislation, it's just a matter of persuading enough members of Congress to listen to their constituents instead of the financial institutions' high-priced lobbyists.