Gf Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone ----- Reply message ----- From: "Kathleen Craine" <kac522@aol.com> Date: Mon, Jan 30, 2012 5:14 pm Subject: [COOK-CO-IL] A little OT: SSDI Access To: <cook-co-il@rootsweb.com> I received this message from another list. The House Ways & Means Committee will be reviewing public access to the SSDI. Kathleen Craine Chicago -------------------------------- I feel the need to sidestep our usual communications and make sure that all of you are aware of the issues we are facing about our right to access the SSDI - Social Security Death Index. As genealogists, I'm guessing our 2 most often used tools are the census and the SSDI. Due to concerns about identity theft, our government now thinks that a key way to fix this problem is to deny the public's access to the SSDI. Many of us first became aware of this when we read an article by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak "Are We Going To Lose The SSDI?" http://megansmolenyak.posterous.com/are-we-going-to-lose-the-social-security-deat We've now learned that the Ways and Means Committee is holding a hearing on the SSDI this Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012. http://waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=276834 NO genealogists are being allowed to be witnesses and testify at this meeting! http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.genealogy.jewish/2012-01/msg00346.html#.TyVbv31zUsc.twitter It is VERY important that we all start writing letters and submit them to the Ways and Means Committee! In the link above about their meeting, if you go down the page, you will find an area about how to submit your letters to them. Follow the directions to the letter! After you've submitted your letter to the above committee, please also figure out who your Senator(s) are and send them a copy of your letter http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and do the same with your Representative(s) http://www.house.gov/representatives/ . The Senator and Representative websites have searches on the top right to help you figure out who represents you. (If possible, please send a letter or a fax. A pile of papers on a politicians desk is going to have a greater impact than a bunch of e-mails in their inbox. E-mailing is better than doing nothing at all, but if possible, don't have it be your first choice.) If you need some ideas for things you can put in your letter, check out this list from RPAC http://www.fgs.org/rpac/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/talking-points-on-why-genealogists-need-social-security-death-index-final.pdf If you need ideas on how to compose a letter, the CAFG is working on sample letters and will post them here: http://www.forensicgenealogists.com/Resources.html Judy Russell who is very well versed in the legal areas that affect genealogy has posted a great blog post here: www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2012/01/29/ssdi-call-to-action/http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2012/01/29/ssdi-call-to-action/ It will give you some great info to get you started. To stay informed of this issue, you can check out Occupy Genealogy on facebook https://www.facebook.com/occupygenealogy or on their website http://www.occupygenealogy.com/action-center---your-help-needed.html Remember the old saying "The squeaky wheel gets the oil"? Now is the time to start squeaking! Please be sure your voice is heard and get those letters submitted ASAP! ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COOK-CO-IL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message