Frankly suspect this was planned so people would panic-welcome a more draconian national identity system that makes them even easier to track and control.

Check the article first. It's not just SSNs that potentially got compromised.

Cryptographic keys stamped into a piece of metal. Too bad our leaders are too incompetent

Yeah my first thought too was this is just a way to introduce voter id under the pretext of national security. It will create chaos, give plausible deniability for throwing out votes, sow doubt and fear, and prevent poor people from registering to vote. Business as usual, in other words.

I don't think this remotely qualifies as a clickbait headline. The exact claim, word for word, is made by a sufficiently credible expert that they're citing in the article.

I'm not saying you can't disagree with the expert. By all means, make your case. But don't call it clickbait. This is absolutely valid reporting. Your disagreement is with the person they're reporting on, not the people doing the reporting.