Governor Compromises the Privacy of Thousands of Maryland Gun Owners

[pilotguy299]

I may be wrong, but I believe that the AGs office is improperly citing title 42 in their response. "laws passed since 1990" may only apply to federal laws, not state laws.

Especially given:

(C)
(i) It is the policy of the United States that any State (or political subdivision thereof) may, in the administration of any tax, general public assistance, driver’s license, or motor vehicle registration law within its jurisdiction, utilize the social security account numbers issued by the Commissioner of Social Security for the purpose of establishing the identification of individuals affected by such law, and may require any individual who is or appears to be so affected to furnish to such State (or political subdivision thereof) or any agency thereof having administrative responsibility for the law involved, the social security account number (or numbers, if he has more than one such number) issued to him by the Commissioner of Social Security.
​

Nowhere in 42USC405 do I see any mention of allowing the collection of social security numbers to be used for the regulation of firearms.


Disseminating social security numbers is an issue, as the state did not properly acquire the information to begin with.

We need to shift the focus from their ability to "legally share" the information, towards them "sharing information they did not legally obtain".

 

[redeemed.man]

I didn't see the actual letter posted so please remove if it's a dupe. My "Senator" (Robey) emailed me and attached a copy of the response from Adam Snyder to Delegate Kevin Kelly. I hope the PDF uploads ok.

The telling part is the last paragraph which seems to be the standard response from Gansler's office when they don't want to stick their necks out. "Although this is not a formal Opinion of the Attorney General, I nevertheless hope that you find it helpful."

In one sentence he says "I see no obstacle" in another he says MSP is to review the application prior to investigation. Isn't the second thought a legal obstacle to the first? In any event the rest of the letter just says the Governor can do whatever he wants. What BS!

 

[StantonCree]

District 15 delegate Feldman is now a Senator. I got an email from him about his new promotion yet he failed to respond to my two previous emails in regards to the MSP privacy breach. Below is the response I sent back to him.

Senator Feldman,

I congratulate you on your new position however I find it utterly disgusting that you send me this email to brag about your new position when you blatantly ignored my last two emails. You and the rest of the Montgomery County delegates have been nothing but a let down to me with your lack of responses to my previous concerns.

As a police officer if I ignored the people I work for in the same manner that you and the Montgomery County delegates have ignored me, I would be fired for dereliction of duty. None of my previous concerns were answered by you or your coworkers so while I honestly congratulate your recent accomplishment I can not revel in your promotion because I know my concerns will not be attended to.

-Matt Jones (a true civil servant)

 

[Martinb]

Love it love it! Matt, well said

 

[Bolts Rock]

Excellent summary, but I still do see how any AG could be that incompetent. Maybe they think we are stupid or the courts have been bought.

Buy more stuff if you can it fun and it is making the states problem bigger. More Lowers in bound

But save a bit of funding for court...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA, myself included four more people decided today to either buy lowers or in one case TWO complete rifles. The fellow buying the rifles doesn't care what kind of AR they are so long as they require a 77R and piss off O'Malley.....he's also 77 years old and the most modern thing he's ever owned is a Garand.

 

[Mr H]

You went shopping with Walt Kowalski???

 

[Bolts Rock]

You went shopping with Walt Kowalski???

He's nowhere near as mean as Walt! ShallNotInfringe has met him, sweet old guy that works in my lab part time. His Scottish wife however can peel the paint off the lab walls over the cellphone if she's a might ticked.

 

[ShallNotInfringe]

He's nowhere near as mean as Walt! ShallNotInfringe has met him, sweet old guy that works in my lab part time. His Scottish wife however can peel the paint off the lab walls over the cellphone if she's a might ticked.

Bolts is a bad influence.

He encourages old men and little women to buy guns and takes them to the range. The end result is eating macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles.

 

[Bolts Rock]

I got Robey's email. My response:

Gee, thanks for the one and only response I have ever gotten from your sorry ass. You couldn't be bothered to respond to polite factual email to you about SB281 during the legislative session nor could you be bothered with even a canned response to my concerns over a week ago about a breach of my Personally Identifying Information, which by the way violates not only state but also Federal law. Now you have the gall to send me an utter ********, cover your ass unofficial opinion? If you can't do your job properly and represent me and respond to my concerns in a timely manner then take me off your mailing list you useless political hack.

 

[Bolts Rock]

Bolts is a bad influence.

He encourages old men and little women to buy guns and takes them to the range. The end result is eating macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles.

Moi?

For the record I did not encourage John, he asked me what would piss off O'Malley the most. I can't help it if I knew the answer.......

 

[501st]

The intent was obviously to let apps pile up and then let us suffer. Requests for more staff at MSP were all but ignored, and there was no urgency in getting the job done in a reasonable amount of time.

So what changed?

My theory (theory only): in expectation of lawsuits over SB281, the AGs office consulted outside counsel who understand the issues better than the state. That counsel took a look at the situation and realized that creating the problem where lawful people are denied the exercise of a SCOTUS-affirmed fundamental right - subject to strict scrutiny - by virtue of the state failing their own processes was not going to go well for them.

Why the push to get this done before October 1?

Discovery. When someone sues, there is a phase where each side gets to ask relevant questions and the other has to answer under oath and threat of perjury. One of the few things that sends gov't officials - small and large - to jail is perjury. It's not the crime, it's the cover-up. A huge backlog causes investigation. That investigation requires interviews with lots of people who won't go to jail for O'Malley and Gansler. The results of those interviews feed into the public case.

O'Malley and Gansler wanted to harm gun owners through inaction. That inaction worked - we have been harmed. The MSI/AGC/Dealers lawsuit forced them to acknowledge that dealers could release prior to the state approval, but not all dealers decided to do so. That leaves many lawful people in the lurch. The harm will only increase once this law goes into effect and no person can transfer a handgun in Maryland until the significant and unconstitutional hoops the state invented are overcome. That will take significant time - more than 30 days - and the Supreme Court has said numerous times that "even one day" constitutes harm.

Even a gun control judge would have a hard time denying a preliminary injunction where the state has openly flouted constitutional law and caused harm to lawful people by preventing them from exercising that right.

The state is hardly out of hot water on this. Even if by some miracle they succeed in getting the checks done before 1 October, there will be many people who are unable to get their lawfully purchased firearms before that time. The final step is picking up the gun, and the state is not about to drive every purchaser in to the shop to get their handgun before 1 October. You miss the date, you lose the gun until you get their license to exercise your civil right.

Then they got the issue of new purchases. There is no way to get a handgun in Maryland without their license, and there is no way for you to get that license - or even apply for it - until after the law goes into effect. They have created a defacto ban for all persons for some limited time, and the ban continues for any person unable (or unwilling) to meet the exceptional burdens the state places upon them.

In a just and fair world, this would be a short dicussion in the third branch. But we know the courts do not view our rights kindly, and will drag heels every step of the way. Were this about people blocking the doors of an abortion clinic - or requiring a license to publish an editorial - the courts would be falling over themselves to enjoin the law.

But even in a system stacked against us, the state has created certain problems that even a biased third branch will find difficult to overcome.

Just be be clear, I was referring to the MSP/state of Maryland/the Maryland legislature in that post. Not MSI or any other group fighting SB281 and any other related infringements.

I understand you have a tough fight with many obstacles/obstructions in your way and that progress will take time (and a bit of money).

I thank you for your efforts in fighting for the second amendment and gun owners in MD.

Thank you for posting a summary of the situation we face in MD.

 

[OrbitalEllipses]

District 15 delegate Feldman is now a Senator. I got an email from him about his new promotion yet he failed to respond to my two previous emails in regards to the MSP privacy breach. Below is the response I sent back to him.

Senator Feldman,

I congratulate you on your new position however I find it utterly disgusting that you send me this email to brag about your new position when you blatantly ignored my last two emails. You and the rest of the Montgomery County delegates have been nothing but a let down to me with your lack of responses to my previous concerns.

As a police officer if I ignored the people I work for in the same manner that you and the Montgomery County delegates have ignored me, I would be fired for dereliction of duty. None of my previous concerns were answered by you or your coworkers so while I honestly congratulate your recent accomplishment I can not revel in your promotion because I know my concerns will not be attended to.

-Matt Jones (a true civil servant)

Is the Indian lady one of the District 15 reps? I got the canned talking points email from her, but the other two didn't respond. Civil servants my ass.

 

[StantonCree]

Is the Indian lady one of the District 15 reps? I got the canned talking points email from her, but the other two didn't respond. Civil servants my ass.

Yeah her last name is Miller and she also failed to respond to my email concerns! Feldman was one of your delegates but he is now in the senate.

 

[501st]

Is the Indian lady one of the District 15 reps? I got the canned talking points email from her, but the other two didn't respond. Civil servants my ass.

Yeah her last name is Miller and she also failed to respond to my email concerns! Feldman was one of your delegates but he is now in the senate.

What did you guys expect? Its Montgomery county, our reps are tools.

 

[csanc123]

Is the Indian lady one of the District 15 reps? I got the canned talking points email from her, but the other two didn't respond. Civil servants my ass.

Aruna Miller....we MUST DINO her out....

 

[Patrick]

Aruna Miller....we MUST DINO her out....

she is junior and only beat out #4 by a few hundred votes. we got many more dedicated gun owners in her district than she scored in total.

 

[My Toy]

The database contains the information on every person and every regulated firearm that person has purchased since its creation. I think that was about 24 months ago. All of that data is accessible to anyone who uses it.

So if your Senator bought a firearm in 2012 - but had no purchases pending at this time - their historical information was still available to anyone who wished to see it.

There is a wide amount of confusion in the ranks of lawmakers. The applications that were sent were indeed limited to the ones outstanding, but the access extended much further due to the open access given the database over an insecure connection. Anything that crossed the internet during this time must be considered exposed. Likewise the fact the username and password were exposed over the internet.

Thanks for the reply Patrick. You have pretty much confirmed my worst suspicion.
Given today's letter from the AG's office, and knowing the track record of Maryland in dealing with gun owners-- I'm guessing any remedy (if any ) is going to be a long way off. I'm afraid in spite of our fighting back we are going to be living with this violation.

I'd like to throw out a question given that this genie is out of the bottle and nothing can un-compromise our information. Now that the composition of my gun collection and that of probably 30,000+ other MD gun owners is available for potential perusal and also our vital info including social security numbers --How concerned are you as individuals for identity theft, burglary, or harassment from people that are not supposed to have your private information? Are you losing sleep over it or do you believe the likelihood is not very great or somewhere in between? Base on your risk assessment have you done anything to mitigate your exposure?

 

[csanc123]

Good stuff....handed Baltimore sun's ass to them in the end:

http://www.zdnet.com/maryland-state...ersonal-data-7000020752/?s_cid=e036&ttag=e036

 

[Mr H]

Get the troops together...

http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=132109

 

[Brooklyn]

True. This is the makings of a good intent gone ugly.

They didn't have the staff or cash to do this with a proper project plan, so over the years a trooper who is self-taught put together some tools for in-house use (like the database). Like other things, it grew because it helped. The guy did good work.

Then the governor panics, and they took some tools that were not designed for the purpose and abused them. Classic stuff.

I like to hire people like that trooper. Initiative and self-taught means they work like champs and can go from 'decent' to 'exceptional' real fast.

Yea unlike us old and slow types that study for years to know how not to do what they did... . Guess what would happen if we hired guys like the trooper

Let's just say we don't... and leave it at that..