Supreme Court: Social Security number needed to fish and hunt

The Montana Shooting Sports Association was handed an unfavorable decision by the Montana Supreme Court in MSSA's lawsuit claiming that it violates the right to privacy in the Montana Constitution for Montanans to be required to divulge a Social Security number in order to legally hunt and fish in Montana.

This MSSA lawsuit has been percolating through the courts since January 2006. While MSSA argued that the requirement to provide an SSN to hunt and fish was unconstitutional, the state of Montana contended that it must collect SSNs to remain eligible under federal law for federal funds for the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

In an opinion released Jan. 19, the Supreme Court sided with the state, holding that the SSN requirement to hunt and fish does not violate the constitutional right to privacy because the plaintiffs' expectation that their SSNs be kept private is, as the court put it, "unreasonable."

The court held that SSNs are a government-issued identifier, not the personal property of the citizen to whom an SSN attaches, and that because the federal government issued the identifier, it is not reasonable to expect that it should be kept private from other government agencies, like Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The court was further persuaded by the state's argument that the federal money made available because of SSN collection was too important to risk.

While members of the Court talk a good game about constitutional rights, what they've said in this decision is that the constitutional rights that the people have reserved to themselves from government interference may be sold to a high bidder by state government if the price is right and the court-determined impact is low.

We had hoped for relief for the people of Montana from the judicial branch. But, it appears that the judiciary is simply another governmental entity willing to support the legislative branch, which passed the SSN requirement, and the executive branch, which lobbied hard for the Legislature to pass the law.

It will be interesting now to see what other constitutional rights will be sold to the high bidder, and how soon that will happen. How much federal money will the state get for tolerable infringement on freedom of the press, freedom of speech or the right to bear arms? Certainly in this time of economic difficulty, the state will be desperate for additional sources of revenue. Watch for other constitutional rights on e-Bay, as cash-strapped state agencies scratch for funding.

Gary Marbut is president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association.