The Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman says he’s learned that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms also wanted a list of Missouri concealed carry permit holders’ names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth.
State Senator Kurt Schaefer (right) announces the latest findings in his probe into the release of Missouri CCW holders’ information, joined by Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (left).
Senator Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) says according to an internal e-mail from the Highway Patrol, when the Social Security Administration requested a list of Missouri concealed carry permit holders, it said it was to conduct a joint investigation with the ATF.
See the internal e-mails Schaefer refers to (pdf).
A list was sent to the Social Security Administration but Schaefer doesn’t know if one went to the Bureau
“All I know at this point is it appears from the internal documents that the Department of Revenue, before they produced the information, knew that it was a joint request from both.”
Schaefer says, that the Revenue Department and Highway Patrol knew the ATF wanted the list is what concerns him the most.
“We’ve had a couple weeks’ worth of hearings and we have heard nothing about ATF, anyone knowing that this was going to ATF, until we actually came across it in the documents.”
The letter Schaefer is referring to on Monday was read to the House Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability by Highway Patrol Superintendent, Colonel Ron Replogle. Replogle did not state whether information was sent to the ATF.
Asked whether it is appropriate for the Bureau or the Social Security Administration, both law enforcement agencies, to have access to that information, Schaefer says it might be on an individual basis. He says to use the entire list of more than 160,000 Missourians who have CCWs is profiling.
A request has been made to have a Social Security Administration investigator testify to the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the Senator says he plans to make a similar request to the ATF to find out if it received the CCW list.
Schaefer says the documents also reveal that the second disc sent to the Social Security Administration was not encrypted, as lawmakers have been told.
“Apparently it was just on an XL protected, password protected file, and the actual password was on a piece of paper in the package with the discs.”
That password was “MOccw.”
The development has caught the attention of Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer. In a statement, his office says Luetkemeyer has sent a letter to the ATF asking about how involved it was in what he calls a “scandal.”
See Congressman Luetkemeyer’s letter to acting ATF Director B. Todd Jones.
