Want to Steal Identities? Check the Congressional Record

In a sad and ironic turn, it turns out that the Congressional Record, since 1971, has been posting military officer Social Security numbers.

Wacky but true, Stars & Stripes, the independent news source for the U.S. military community, just reported that hundreds of thousands of officers’ Social Security numbers have been floating around on the Internet. In an October 2008 letter to the Defense Department and the Federal Trade Commission, Public.Resource.org – a non-profit aimed at providing access to public records -- detailed its discovery of roughly 232,000 military officers’ Social Security numbers in government and commercial databases, available to anyone with an Internet connection. Such lists are available online and in print at libraries throughout the United States. The complaint, addressed to the military Inspector General, did not reach the Defense Privacy Office until this August. The office is now in the process of ensuring the numbers have been redacted, both online and in print.