Texas AG: Clerk's bill falls short

Recent state legislation concerning the publication of Social Security numbers by Texas' officials absolves the clerks of liability but fails to address the growing problem of identity theft, said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott speaking to students and parents of the Fort Bend ISD.

Abbott serves as the state's top attorney, and on Feb. 21 he wrote an opinion stating Texas law makes the distribution of Social Security numbers a crime, even by county and district clerks in the course of their ordinary business.

The ruling warned county clerks that, “Prior to posting a record on the Internet, the clerk must redact the SSN’s of living persons from any record subject to the PIA”

Most Texas clerks have never posted the records online. After the ruling, the majority of clerks continued to provide access at the courthouse while a few shut down their offices entirely. Some clerks stretched crime scene tape across the records and told visiting researchers that because of Abbott’s ruling, they would not be allowed access even in the clerk’s office.

Angered and blaming Abbott, industry spokesmen swarmed into Austin to lobby the legislature.

The Texas House and Senate have since responded by unanimously passing legislation that would absolve clerks of criminal and civil liability for exposing the federal identification numbers in documents available over the Internet. The bill awaits the signature of Gov. Rick Perry.

"(The bill) fixes the problem as it concerns access to the documents in the courthouse, as well as the potential liability on the part of the county and district clerks," said Abbott. "It doesn't go the full way of fixing the problem of protecting people from identity theft as it concerns Social Security numbers."

Abbott's opinion was written in response to a series of questions posed to him in 2005 by former Fort Bend County Attorney Bud Childers, and it proved a rebuke to County Clerk Dianne Wilson's practice of placing court documents online.

The new legislation, HB 2061, should "fix the problem" of absolving Texas' clerks not only of criminal liability in a 2005 state law, but also liability under the Social Security Act of 1990.

"Any state law passed after 1990 that concerns either the obtaining or maintaining Social Security numbers must have protection against disclosure of those numbers," said Abbot. "What this most recent (Texas) legislation does is, it says clerks are not in the business of obtaining or maintaining Social Security numbers."

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