I was astonished to find that you have to provide your social security number to obtain a Pennsylvania fishing license. With a son who just turned sixteen, we decided to take him to a nearby creek to fish and have a picnic for his birthday. Well, that seems easy enough right? I gathered him up and took him to KMart to get him a fishing license, since at the age of sixteen you must obtain one to have the right to put your line in the water whether you catch any fish or not.The KMart employee asked me how he could help me and I replied that I needed to get two fishing licenses. I wanted one for my son and one for my husband. He then asked me if we had a drivers license, which I thought was a little curious, but being the trusting, follow the rules kind of girl I am, handed it over. I asked if you had to be present to obtain a license and he said that you had to provide a social security number to get a license in PA! I was astounded and very very angry. In effect, my trip was wasted since my son's ssn was not registered and imprinted in my brain and the card was at home. I couldn't even get one for my husband, since first of all, we have been married a short time and I didn't know it, and second, I would NOT have given his ssn without his knowledge for something like this.
I am just wondering what in the heck is in the minds of the government, besides invading our privacy. I was so pissed about this that I demanded the guy hand back my license. He said, "you don't want to buy one then?" Since I told him that I wanted a license for my SON and HUSBAND, what the hell did he think he was going to do with MY license anyway? I questioned him further, or rather, ranted at him and it was apparent to me he didn't have any idea why they had such a requirement.
I stomped home and lamented to my poor husband (the quiet one) about the idiocy of our government. Here they are issuing laws to protect our privacy and deter identity theft, and then go about finding more ways to put our information out there in someone else's databanks.
We decided that instead of buying fishing licenses and giving the identity thieves breakfast, we would just let the dogs do the fishing for us!
When I came to work today, I decided to find out what was up with the requirement for the licenses. I found out their brilliant idea was to catch the people who owed back child support while they are buying their licenses. You have got to be kidding me. How about the poor people who are supposed to GET the support (which I am one of whom never does) and can't even obtain a fishing license without subjecting yourself to identity thieves? Now, if a guy (i will use GUY for the purpose of this post although I know there may be some GIRLS out there owing) is dead beat enough that he won't pay for his children...i doubt he is a stand up citizen enough to go out and spend $22 bucks for a damn fishing license. I guess that is up for argument since they only think of themselves anyway.
Also, it apparently doesn't apply to all the jerks who simply owe support that don't pay...only to the ones who have a COURT ORDER that they can't buy a license!
In doing some more research I found that the people ASKING for your social security number must provide a few bits of information themselves: they have to tell you what law authorizes the request, what it will be used for, and whether it is optional... and they can only ask if the reason is within the bound of what the privacy act allows it to be used for. Now I didn't get far enough to see whether they would ask me to sign a privacy release form, but they guy CLEARLY had no clue what law made it necessary or what the information was to be used for. It also states that you don't have to state out loud your ssn, but can write it on a scrap of paper for the clerk. KEWL! Let's do that. But then, what happens to the scrap of paper? Or what happens to the paper form you have to fill out for the license? I am quite sure those records are kep securely right? I think it is just a bunch of crap and gives the government one more way to keep track of us.
