If anyone is even remotely thinking that government systems are secure from leaks of personal data - read this.
As reported today by the Associated Press, the Personal information on 26.5 million U.S. veterans was stolen from an employee who "took the data home without authorization".
Read about it on Yahoo News
What the hell is an EMPLOYEE of the Department of Defense doing taking home the personal information of 26.5 MILLION people? I thought there were laws in this country to prevent this type of mishandling of information.
Evidently this EMPLOYEE working for the Department of Veterans Affairs felt it necessary to take home several GIGS of data from his government workstation. Why was this information even available to this employee to download?
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that "we have no reason to believe at this time" that the data has been exploited for identity theft." - Why the hell would an employee take 26.5 MILLION records home? Does anyone realize that this represents over 10% of the ENTIRE US POPULATION. Isn't this theft of public property? Why is the FBI sitting on their hands? The government states they are going to send a letter to each person affected by this incident - 26 MILLION?
Lawmakers are "outraged", the unnamed and uncharged "employee" has been placed on Administrative Leave "pending the outcome of an investigation" (which we will hear nothing about). This action violates the HIPAA regulation regarding patient medical records where there is JAIL time involved for a civilian doing such a thing at a hospital - Blog this !
Not only is this frightening revelation a wake-up-call to Vets, but every American should be outraged. Every single American citizen's data is on some government server somewhere just waiting for some lowbrow to plug in a portable hard drive and download hundreds of gigs of information - to use for whatever purpose they desire.
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