Here’s an email I got yesterday about the Social Security Issue:

I applaud you for speaking out about identity theft. Why don’t you take it a step further, and help provide the overall cure? Having a radio show, you could be of great help in that area. Get your pal Clark to help, too.

The Problem: Banks make it too easy to get credit cards and open accounts. You only need a small bit of someone’s personal data to open an account, or steal an identity. True proof of identity is no required to open an account.

The Cure: Get your listeners to write to their elected officials to ask that banks no longer be allowed to open bank accounts or credit cards by mail, or at least without absolute proof of identity. Make it difficult for credit card companies to send out “pre-approved” status mailings, and so on. Once done, the stolen data will not be so valuable, and identity theft will slow down or grind to a halt.

(About) 99 percent of identity theft is about bank accounts, and credit cards. The cure is simple. Motivate your elected officials to stop it! The problem is exclusive to banks, so they should change their business practices.

Hope you actually read this, and will think about the reasons the problems exist, at all. You really can help cure this with your large audience. Thanks.

This is Ilyce again: I’m throwing this out — What do YOU think we should do?

April 4, 2006