Acid Test

vol_scouter, I wrote these a couple of pages back - just some advice. In addition I have received 3 pms from other formites who have given up responding to his postings and suggested I do the same. Several others, as you have noticed, learned this lesson long ago and just avoid him. Sorry Ed, I will no longer respond to your posts, your comical private messages or your ridiculous request for a public apology. Simply put, I am not stepping down to your level. Ed, Are you able to read any of the prior posts in this thread or access the links? It seems you are responding in some sort of vacuum or time warp. evmori wrote... Acid Test, No thank you to what? No thank you I will not participate in your obvious attempts to troll. Sorry, you will have to get your troll satsifaction from some other thread or from someone else. Vol, in addition I have received 3 pms from other formites who have given up responding to his postings and suggested I do the same. Several others, as you have noticed, learned this lesson long ago and just avoid him.

vol-scouter - where did you see that the background check is also a consumer check? I am not seeing that in the application. btw, this is a great point.

067-52-9856, I am not afraid to post mine cause its protected nldscout - I assume you would have no objections if I link to this thread so all can see your SSN. Please let me know if you are okay with this.

Evmori wrote.... If you are spending time with my son on a regular basis, I would want as thorough of a check done as possible. Why let someone slip through the cracks because their fingerprints aren't on file but their SSN will tell you they are bad news? That makes no sense. Just wrong on so many levels. At first I thought you were the regular forum troll but I now believe it is something else. Even the worst forum trolls exhibit levels of comprehension, common sense and most important, intelligence. Sorry Ed, I will no longer respond to your posts, your comical private messages or your ridiculous request for a public apology. Simply put, I am not stepping down to your level.

evmori wrote... Fingerprints are great to identify someone. But not everyone's are on file to be checked! And usually if they are, the reason isn't a good one! Duh. Exactly!!! Fingerprints are taken for criminals. If your fingerprints are on file in association for a crime then you probably have the background that would exclude you from being a leader. That is why fingerprints are a better choice than a SSN. SSNs can be stolen (first post and nearly everyone after), fingerprints cannot.

It may be to do periodic checks in the future.

Not sure whether it was a local council requirement or the national council making this requirement. I think the local registrar was getting upset with me at that point and stated she was still required to keep my SSN in their system and on my application when I offered to enter my SSN into the background check system directly.

At this point, I would like to see some other organization (not the BSA) get the crap sued out of them because they didn't secure SSN's. The more wide known and public, the better. Maybe other organizations would learn from the event and evaluate their own policies.

Horizon wrote.... Interesting debate. I think it can be summed up this way: Cost of requiring a SSN vs. Cost of letting someone slip through into the system. Here is the response from AYSO regarding their requirement for SSN for all volunteers: ----------------------- Why does AYSO need the SSN in the first place? AYSO is a national organization. We secure criminal background reports by searching court documents in county jurisdictions all across the country. These jurisdictions use a variety of personal information to identify those convicted of crimes. Unfortunately, there is no consistency as to the information used from jurisdiction to jurisdiction to identify those convicted. The expert opinions we sought and received on the matter told us unequivocally that all this information including the SS# - was necessary to ensure the viability of the background information we secure. Collecting all this information serves AYSO on two fronts. First, the accuracy of the information we receive ensures that we exclude those with the highest potential for harm to our children, and, equally important, it helps us avoid excluding a good and valuable volunteer due to mistaken identity. AYSO = American Youth Soccer Organization? What you wrote is true but there are alternatives and better ones. Remember the FBI does background checks without a SSN. It can be done. Fingerprints is a better identifier than a SSN anyway since SSNs can be and have been stolen. The BSA having this requirement is bad enough, but it is probably the easiest to administrate. What is completely unacceptable is they are also keeping your SSN for their records - my local council told me so when I offered to enter my SSN into the background search system at their location to avoid having my SSN on paperwork or on servers where it really isn't needed. They told me they will still keep it in their files and on their computer system because they are required to. Eventhough the background search is complete!!

Sorry nldscout, I missed your question. Essentially, I have not lost a thing to-date - I have been pretty fortunate that the stealing parties have not acted. Here are the three incidents: On-line music store is hacked and a few thousand credit card numbers were stolen - mine was one of them. I found out about the hacking within a day of the event and immediately cancelled our cards. Our credit card company at this time offered some protection against fraud but we still would have had to pay for some of the charges. Other people were not as quick as us and ended up with a bunch of bad charges. Wells Fargo "lost" some of their computer servers in transport from the US to overseas. On these computers were thousands of SSN and other confidential financial information. We received letters at home from Wells Fargo about the incident including an 800 number to call with questions. This is still an open issue. We were out buying a piece of furniture from a store one evening and our credit card was denied. Furthermore, the sales agent said that Capital One was on the phone and wanted to speak with us. Turns out that there was a lock on our account because of suspicious activity. There were dozens of bad charges against our account by people in England and somewhere else in Europe but I forget where. The information leak was from Capital One who's system was hacked and confidential information stolen including my credit card number and SSN. We cancelled our account and new cards were issued. Capital One picked up the cost of the bad charges. This is still an open issue. In both cases with credit cards, we had to go through the trouble of immediately transititioning accounts - there are purchases that didn't post against the old card when cancelled. Setting up auto-pays is also a pain. With these learnings, I don't offer my SSN to those parties that don't absolutely require them like doctors, denists and utility companies. There is nothing I can do with my employer or the IRS since it is a requirement unless I don't want to work. My aim is to minimize those that have it. Much like anything, it is managed risk.

skeptic wrote.... You know folks, a lot of you are making this out to be some kind of huge conspiracy, or simply playing the "fear" card. Reality is that this requirement, while perhaps not absolutely necessary, is highly unlikely to contribute to identity theft; and frankly, most of you have very likely given out more than enough information somewhere else should someone really want to make you a victim. The issue is that the risk is largely unknown since the BSA is keeping our SSN on file and within their computers, at least at the local council level and perhaps at the national level - doesn't matter since they are all networked anyway. You would hope that they would just enter your number into the background search program, but they are also keeping it elsewhere - this was confirmed by the BSA when I asked the question. Additionally I don't know how good the BSA's computer security is - do they have a group of IT folks that are competent enough to have the systems secure? As an employee of a large organization that interacts with IT folks, I can tell you from our conversations that they track the number of times there are attempts to penetrate the company's computer systems. The numbers would surprise you with most being from overseas. The BSA is a prime target for US attacks because of their positions on sensitive current events. But unless someone here knows somebody who works for the BSA's IT group or who they contract it to, we will not know. As far as fingerprinting, I offered this as an alternative to providing a SSN and they said no. I even offered to pay for it but the BSA is insisting on a SSN and that is it.

evmori wrote... Acid Test, No thank you to what? No thank you I will not participate in your obvious attempts to troll. Sorry, you will have to get your troll satsifaction from some other thread or from someone else.

evmori wrote... Acid Test, No thank you to what? No thank you I will not participate in your obvious attempts to troll. Sorry, you will have to get your troll satsifaction from some other thread or from someone else.

Ed, No thank you.

In response to Ed's responses... There is a difference between protecting something and hiding something. Just because someone is trying to protect doesn't mean they are trying to hide. Somebody who is wanting to protect their SSN from theft doesn't mean they have something in their backgrounds to hide. This assumption is childness. (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Evmori wrote... Did you divulge your SSN on the Scout application, Acid Test? Nope

Thanks to all for the great advice. I did enroll in Lifelock and completed my application with scouts. Ed, With all due respect, that is the whole premise of this thread. Sorry you missed it. Both my wife and I take great measures to protect our privacy - all measures are mentioned in one of the links posted some time back. Thanks again to all of those who helped out. Sincerely, AT

Acid Test, Has your ID been stolen? Posts 1 & 28 You claim to be worried about this happening but will not take the necessary steps to help prevent it from happening other then refusing to divulge your SSN to the BSA so you can be registered. Posts 28, 31, 39 Yep I read all your posts. I'm still trying to figure out what you have to hide! Even your profile is blank. Posts 1, 11, 23, 30 Ed Mori 1 Peter 4:10

evmori wrote.... Ya gotta have something worth taking for an ID thief to be interested in you. And if an ID thief wants your info, he will get it! If you are so concerned about someone stealing your ID then you should take the necessary steps to help prevent it! And until you do, shouting the sky is falling serves no purpose. Ed Mori 1 Peter 4:10 Ed, Are you able to read any of the prior posts in this thread or access the links? It seems you are responding in some sort of vacuum or time warp.

Now he is a millionaire!!! Actually I like this solution and will sign up, complete my BSA application and move on to leading the boys. One note - it will cost me $99/year. I will now buy $99 less scout popcorn per year to fund this service. thanks a million!! (pun intended)

I thought about it but most of these are small companies with little proven track record. Is there one you have been looking at? Does anyone else use this type of service - please weigh-in. Also, what happens if you allow the service to expire? Do they purge their computers of your information? Wells Fargo has one they have been pushing but there is something wrong with the idea of a company selling me an identity protection service after loosing my personal information.

There is little doubt your information is already out there but it doesn't need to be everywhere where your chances of having it stolen become much higher. Especially in the hands of organizations that seem to fail to understand the importance of keeping this type of information confidential or they wouldn't require it in the first place, especially when there are worth alternatives. And let us not forget, we all might die tomorrow. Does that mean we stop living today? Of course not - but I might choose not to smoke knowing the increased likelyhood of acquiring lung cancer. I might choose not to consume large amounts of alcohol knowing the risks associated with liver damage. I might choose not to ride my bicycle down the middle of a crowded road during rush hour.

nldscout wrote..... Don't you think ChoicePoint already has a file on you already with your name, address, phone number, DOB, SSN, Vehicle history, Payment history, shoe size, what you bought last for lunch. Everything is already out there on some computer already, so what the heck does it matter The locations that Choicepoint searches definitely has my SSN. So does my employer and the IRS. But my electric company doesn't, yet they "required" it. Neither does my gas company, cable company, doctor, denist, kid's doctors, kid's denist, and local municiples entities - each requested my number at some point. Do you trust that my doctor's computer systems are entirely secure or of the others listed above? I personally do not and will continue to keep the number of systems that have my SSN to a bare minimum. I have already been burned 3 times in the last 5 years by breaches in other systems: First was a large on-line music store who's system was hacked and everybody's credit card information was stolen. I can't remember the name of the store but they went out of business within 3 months of the breach. Second was Wells Fargo who had some of their computer servers stolen upon trying to physically move them from the US to India. They supposedly never landed in India and one or more of the servers contained my personal data. Third was Capital One, the company that issues my credit card. They have been very tight lipped on the situation but the letter from them said my information may have been stolen and the matter is under investigation.

The issue at hand is not whether or not a background check should be run - I think we are all in agreement that these checks are essential. The issue is why the BSA is insisting on requiring a SSN to perform the checks when there are equally effective (or better) alternatives. Background checks are being performed everyday for those purchasing a firearm in the USA. A SSN is not required - see ATF Form 4473. It is and can be done.

Bob White wrote... In 1970 the membership in the BSA was 6,287,284. In 1982 it was 4,542,449. In 1999 it was 6,247,743 What does this tell you? It tells me that the enrollment from 1970-1999 is stagnant and the rate of enrollment (number enrolled divided by the number available) is declining. I don't think there is any disputing this based on the numbers you provided and the definitions of stagnant and declining. Your point regarding social security numbers is right.