June 22, 2005

Social Security Administration Loosens Privacy Rules For Its Files

The Social Security Administration has relaxed its privacy restrictions and searched thousands of its files at the request of the F.B.I. as part of terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, newly disclosed records and interviews show. Some privacy advocates and members of Congress, although sympathetic to the extraordinary demands posed by the Sept. 11 investigation, said they were troubled by what they saw as a significant shift in privacy policies.

Social Security Opened Its Files for 9/11 Inquiry, New York Times, June 22, 2005.