After the fun I had getting my Driver's License renewed a couple of months ago.

[hobbit709]

I niow get to deal with Social Security trying to get on Disability. I now have to send $30 and a notarized request to get a certified copy of a DS-1350 from the State Department. I have to prove I'm an American citizen by birth all over again. And it gets better. SSA wants all this to process my claim. The State Department says it will take 2 to 4 months to get this processed and to me.

I'm tired of having to continually prove who I've been for 59 years. I didn't need this much paperwork to enlist in the US Air Force and hold a Top Secret clearance back in 1970.

The Department of Homeland (In)Security strikes again

[Ohio Joe]

1. What happened with your DL?

I just renewed mine last week and it was not bad at all. 5 minutes in line, 2 minutes at the counter and another 5 for the picture and waiting for it to come out of the machine. Aside from Ohio DL's now being pink, it was not a problem.

[hobbit709]

2. Read it here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6013639&mesg_id=6013639

While the Xerox of DS-1350 was good enough for TX DPS, it isn't good enough for SSA.

[Ohio Joe]

4. Man... Thats nuts

Good luck with it.

[Bertha Venation]

3. All I can say is

god dammit. So sorry, Hobbit. Good luck.

[DarkTirade]

5. Yeah, its gotten ridiculous.

My brother can't ever get another social security card because when our dad left when we were little, we dropped the hyphenated part of our last name that was his. I got around to getting my name on my social security card updated in the late 90s, but he didn't try until the mid 2000's. So now he has no IDs other than his social security card and birth certificate with the hyphenated last name. He stopped using that name before he got his drivers license, school transcripts, anything else that could be used to say he's him. And a birth certificate and social security card... are not enough ID for the social security office to update his records and give him a new card.

So his wife, who was born in Vietnam and got citizenship here because she married him, can get a new social security card anytime. His daughter who shares his non-hyphenated last name can. But he can't. Ever.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. If he has the money, it's worth spending a few bucks to change his name legally.

It's not going to get any easier from here on.

[DarkTirade]

9. The problem is that he needs to prove to the social security office

that he is the person on the birth certificate and social security card. And just about every government office can accept that he is that person, EXCEPT the people who do the social security cards. They need some form of ID that shows him with the other name that he doesn't have. So he'd need to legally change his name to the one he never used, then legally change it back. :P

So I suppose it is possible if he desperately needs to. But a pain in the arse.

[Gormy Cuss]

10. Well, he could divorce his wife, instruct her to keep her current surname, then remarry her..

and take HER surname at marriage. :P

Seriously, it's so effed up that he probably should change it twice if that's what it takes.

[DarkTirade]

11. Hmm... that might actually work.

:P

[gmoney]

7. Just give them your original Kenyan birth certificate and all will be fine...

Sorry to hear you're getting so many hassles and delays.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. The terraists have won-- they have realized...

that they don't need to blow up buildings to destroy us.

Just let our own paranoia make everything a thousand times more difficult than it should be.