Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 21:35:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Matthew Belmonte <belmonte@cns.nyu.edu>
To: nita.lowey@mail.house.gov
Subject: NO on HR 1428

I write to express my opposition to HR 1428, the so-called Voter Eligibility
Verification Act.  By allowing selective verification of voter eligibility,
this bill would intimidate minority voters into staying away from the polls.
In addition, it would create a national database of voter information, the
contents of which could be easily abused for political ends.  By weakening
certain provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974, this bill would allow states
to require voters to submit their Social Security numbers - yet the bill
contains no measures to ensure that states preserve the privacy of these
numbers!  Since voter registration is a matter of public record, and since
Social Security numbers are used as indices to confidential information in
both governmental and private information systems, this will certainly lead
to abuses.

For all these reasons, HR 1428 is a bad idea.  It's the latest manifestation
of a disturbing trend toward government tracking of individuals and their
histories.  We must hold in mind that a government is only as trustworthy as
the least trustworthy individual within it.