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Article: Privacy-Minded Lawyer Takes On Supreme Court; New York Applicant for the Bar Battles to Keep His Social Security Number to Himself
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- February 16, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Elliot Cohen, a New York lawyer who since the 1970s has spurned
bureaucratic demands for his Social Security number, is trying to
face down the highest court in the land.
Why should a lawyer who wants to join the Supreme Court bar have
to reveal his Social Security number, he asked, pointing to a federal
law that generally says a person's Social Security number should be
private.
And what about the Supreme Court being the last bastion of an
individual's privacy anyway, he added. "I find it ironic," he said.
Five years ago, Cohen, 35, successfully protested a Connecticut
bar requirement that applicants give out their Social Security
numbers and last year won a change in a similar policy for ...