That's a rather special case; the nature of the HALE program means that you can't allow someone to ask "do SSNs X and Y belong to the same natural person?". Whe

That's a rather special case; the nature of the HALE program means that you can't allow someone to ask "do SSNs X and Y belong to the same natural person?". Whereas such a question would be entirely reasonable for the SS issuing authority to answer under more normal circumstances. (as for whether this case was actually a case of fraud, well, "the heart of Yould’s defense was that she thought she was allowed, under the hale program, to use the new Social Security number to apply for the loans above the lifetime cap and to use one name as a co-signer for loans to the other" pretty much sums it up for me... who would think that?!)