Comments Of Sen. Patrick Leahy
On Disclosure That Personal Data
Of Active-Duty Military Personnel
Were Also Lost In The VA’s Data Theft Case
News Conference
Capitol Hill
Wednesday, June 7, 2006

The unprecedented loss of the personal data of 26.5 million veterans raised serious and troubling questions about identity theft and about the Bush-Cheney Administration’s management of the VA.    

Now we learn that the Social Security numbers and other personal information for as many as 2.2 million U.S. military personnel – including nearly 80 percent of our active-duty force -- were among the data the VA has lost.  

VA claimed over weekend that data of only about 50,000 service members may have been lost.  But yesterday it was DOD, not VA, that revealed that the number apparently is far higher.  With the privacy of our servicemen and women at stake, why did it take so long for them to figure this out?

            Because of the VA’s recklessness, our veterans – and our active-duty service members and Guard Members and Reservists who, at this very moment, are risking their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere – now have to worry about whether their personal information could be sold on the black market or fall into the hands of terrorists or foreign intelligence services. 

It all adds up to a heckuva bad job for America’s veterans, and for our men and women in uniform.  Earlier I called on the President to invite Secretary Nicholson into the woodshed for a serious shakeup in how the VA is run.  There’s no evidence yet that anything close to that has happened.  It should happen now.

Unfortunately, so far there’s little indication that the Republican leadership of the Congress cares much more about solutions than the Bush-Cheney Administration does.

More than a year after the data breaches at ChoicePoint and LexisNexis, the theft of sensitive personal information is becoming an alarmingly all-too-familiar story for too many Americans. 

The theft of our veterans’ personal data is just the latest example of why we need strong federal data privacy and security laws.

Last year, Senator Specter and I introduced the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act, which requires federal agencies and private data brokers to give prompt notice when sensitive personal information has been breached or stolen.  The Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly approved this bill last fall, but almost a year later, the Senate has still not acted on this legislation.  Had this bill been in enacted, it would have required the VA to promptly notify the millions of Veterans now at risk of identity theft about the theft of their personal data.

Our bill also addresses the government’s use of personal data by putting privacy and security front and center in evaluating whether data brokers can be trusted with government contracts that involve sensitive information about the American people.

The veterans and active-duty servicemen and women who have become the latest victims of this culture of cronyism culture of incompetence have had enough.

For the sake of our veterans, our men and women in uniform, and of all Americans, Congress needs to make data security and privacy a priority in the remaining weeks of this session.  And the President needs to get a handle on the wayward leadership of the Department of Veterans Affairs.    

The nation’s veterans – who have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country – deserve to have the best tools available to protect themselves and their families from identity theft. 

Congress must act now to pass comprehensive data privacy and security legislation. 

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