Social Security numbers now needed to purchase fishing and hunting licenses In the past three weeks, Sandy Cordle has been sworn at and threatened with a lawsuit, just for doing her job.

Cordle is customer services manager in charge of state hunting and fishing license sales at Snappy Sport Senter in Kalispell. The angry treatment she's been getting from customers recently appears to be a widespread response by western Montana residents to a new requirement to furnish their Social Security numbers when purchasing fishing and hunting licenses.

"I've had terrible reactions to it," said Cordle. "I've had a few people walk out. I've heard a lot of swear words. One man wants to sue me. He figures if he sues me, that's a good way to get the fish and game department's attention." Typical of most western Montana license vendors contacted by the Missoulian on Wednesday, Cordle said there's been lots of grumbling about the Social Security number requirement, but only a few people have actually refused to provide the information. Snappy Sport Senter is the state's third largest vendor of hunting and fishing licenses, by volume, for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, according to Cordle. FWP's new license year started March 1. Since they went on sale a couple of weeks before that, Cordle said, Snappy has sold approximately 1,000 licenses. Of that total, Cordle said, about half the applicants complained that the new Social Security requirement is an invasion of privacy.

"But most say they don't want to fight it," she added.

The 1999 Montana Legislature, at the request of the state's Department of Health and Human Services, passed the law requiring Social Security numbers for the purchase of hunting and fishing licenses. The measure is an attempt to identify and crack down on parents who are delinquent on child-support payments.

The law was mandated by the federal government as a condition of the state receiving about $116 million in federal child-support enforcement money over the next two years. A Missoula-based firearms advocacy group announced this week that it is launching a ballot initiative to repeal parts of the license law. A draft of the initiative is being reviewed by the state's Legislative Services Division, according to Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, which filed the initiative. The next step in getting the initiative on the November ballot is approval from the Montana secretary of state. The state's approval process should be completed by mid-April, Marbut said. Then initiative supporters will have until mid-July to collect 19,682 signatures of registered Montana voters. At least 5 percent of those signatures must come from 34 or more of the state's 100 legislative districts.

This will be the first time the Internet will play a major part in the voter initiative process, Marbut said. Supporters anywhere in the state will be able to print out the initiative from the Montana Shooting Sports Association Web site and collect signatures, he said.

"That, coupled with the energy and anger over this that's out there," said Marbut, "I think is going to make this an interesting experiment." FWP officials anticipated some controversy over the new Social Security number requirement, according to Barney Benkelman, FWP's chief of licensing and information technology in Helena. The agency has asked hunters in the past to voluntarily provide Social Security numbers on applications for special hunting permits for moose, sheep and goats, Benkelman said.

"Just on a voluntary basis," he said during a March meeting in Missoula with western Montana license vendors, "we've had close to 95 percent compliance. But 5 percent is still quite a bit when you're talking about 250,000 or 300,000 people buying licenses. I'm not here to defend the legislation. It wasn't Fish, Wildlife and Parks' idea. But the bottom line is it is state law. It's against the law not to get it on the license."

A few hunters and anglers have vowed to flaunt the law, according to several license vendors. Missoula's FWP Region 2 office has sold a couple of hundred licenses for the new year, according to Ginny Schmautz, acting office manager. "We haven't had as many complaints (about Social Security numbers) as I anticipated," she said. "But we've had a few people come in and say they won't buy a license. They just say 'I'll hunt and fish without a license.' We've had maybe a half-dozen of those." Another problem with the new licenses, according to license agents, is that Social Security numbers are required for children age 12 and over, as well as adults. And neither the majority of kids, nor their parents, know what the number is.

"People have to leave and go home and get their kids' Social Security number," said Maureen Dowdy, floor manager of Bob Ward & Sons in Hamilton. "They bicker about it. But they always come back."

License vendors have expressed concern about selling licenses to children of tourists in the summer, when people are far from home, and may not have ready access to their children's Social Security numbers.

"It's going to be a nightmare," said one license agent.

So far, said Cordle, Snappy Sport Senter hasn't had too much problem with selling youth licenses. "Actually," she said, "most people have dealt with that. They've brought their kids' Hunter Safety certification cards. Their Social Security number is on the card." Idaho, which also requires Social Security numbers for fishing and hunting licenses, has solved the problem by letting parents put their Social Security numbers - followed by three zeros - on their children's licenses.

FWP plans to devise a similar solution for tourists' children by this summer, according to Benkelman. The agency also plans to come up with a method of selling licenses to foreigners, who don't have Social Security numbers, he said. The license controversy has soured her appreciation for her job, Cordle said.

"When I go out to dinner, or go out with friends, I get the opinions about it," she said. "But I tell them they're forgetting they need to deal with their legislator or Fish, Wildlife and Parks. I've always liked my job. I like helping people and selling them licenses. But I've seen people a lot different the last few weeks. People feel their privacy has been invaded. It has been before, but this is bringing it out in the open. We've got a lot of unhappy people around."