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fleur-de-lisa

(14,628 posts)
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 04:54 PM Mar 2019

By using social media, Trump Admin wants to watch those who claim SS disability benefits

On Disability and on Facebook? Uncle Sam Wants to Watch What You Post

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/us/politics/social-security-disability-trump-facebook.html#click=https://t.co/OandGlTwxs

If you’re on federal disability payments and on social media, be careful what you post. Uncle Sam wants to watch.

The Trump administration has been quietly working on a proposal to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to help identify people who claim Social Security disability benefits without actually being disabled. If, for example, a person claimed benefits because of a back injury but was shown playing golf in a photograph posted on Facebook, that could be used as evidence that the injury was not disabling.

“There is a little bitty chance that Social Security may be snooping on your Facebook or your Twitter account,” Robert A. Crowe, a lawyer from St. Louis who has represented Social Security disability claimants for more than 40 years, said he cautioned new clients. “You don’t want anything on there that shows you out playing Frisbee.”

In its budget request to Congress last year, Social Security said it would study whether to expand the use of social media networks in disability determinations as a way to “increase program integrity and expedite the identification of fraud.”

This smells of Stephen Miller.
16 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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OhioBlue

(5,126 posts)
12. How can they know it is actually the person they are investigating? There is no social security
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 12:20 AM
Mar 2019

number attached to a facebook account and anyone can claim any name. An account can also be cloned. Someone right clicks your pic and creates another account with your name and sends new friend requests to your friends.

standingtall

(2,787 posts)
2. If anyody thinks they will stop at pictures posted playing golf
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 05:00 PM
Mar 2019

in going after people on disability they are naive. Soon they will shift to claiming they are not disabled by having a social media account in the first place.

 

jberryhill

(62,444 posts)
6. How is that "snooping"?
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 05:04 PM
Mar 2019

It’s surprising how many people think there is something underhanded about looking at what they publish themselves on the internet.

Haggis for Breakfast

(6,831 posts)
10. It gets "underhanded"
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 06:29 PM
Mar 2019

when the government USES that information to make judgments about what IS or IS NOT a disability.

Volaris

(10,274 posts)
11. That information legally belongs to Facebook.
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 09:09 PM
Mar 2019

I'm no fan personally (and why I don't use the damn thing)
But there IS an argument to be made about the opposed ideas of 'no you don't actually have e free speech in here because you signed the EULA,' AND 'the government can just go a-browsing, and then use what they see IN A PRIVATLY OWNED SPACE to deny you something, without a warrant or due process.'.

Everybody has to pick one or the other. If it's a public space, then Facebook doesn't get to tell me what I can and cannot say there.
If it's a private space, the government can get a warrant and Facebook, and ATT, and everyone else should be telling them that on our behalf, and short OF that warrant, the justice department and Homeland Security can fuck right off.
Same goes for every other site that is NOT a .gov.

Let's decide.

Volaris

(10,274 posts)
16. You'd think the government that we all pay for would publish a list of which firms,
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 09:40 AM
Mar 2019

If we asked them to heh

Glimmer of Hope

(5,823 posts)
7. Because all disabilities are apparent and god forbid you chose to live life?
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 05:10 PM
Mar 2019

My disability was granted within two weeks of application because I have a very grave illness that I hide pretty well. Evil idiots.

athena

(4,187 posts)
13. Sickening but clever.
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 12:26 AM
Mar 2019

This is not about saving the government money. I’m sure the number of people fraudulently claiming benefits is small enough that the effort to find them will cost more than it saves. This is about creating the connection in people’s minds between social security disability benefits and fraud. It worked with welfare, and it will work with disability benefits as well.

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