not just 50,000 as initially believed - were among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee
TCPalm: News: "Associated Press Writer
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Personal data on more than 2.2 million active-duty military personnel - not just 50,000 as initially believed - were among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee last month, the government said Tuesday.
VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said the agency was mistaken when it said over the weekend that up to 50,000 Navy and National Guard personnel - and no other active-duty personnel - were affected by the May 3 burglary.
In fact, names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of as many as 1.1 million active-duty personnel from all the armed forces, along with 430,000 members of the National Guard, and 645,000 members of the Reserves, may have been included.
'VA remains committed to providing updates on this incident as new information is learned,' Nicholson said in a statement, explaining that it discovered the larger numbers after the VA and Pentagon compared their electronic files more closely.
His announcement came shortly after the Pentagon distributed a briefing memo to Congress - obtained by The Associated Press - that said the 50,000 figure cited over the weekend was understated.
The disclosure is the latest in a series of revisions by the government as to who was affected since publicizing the burglary on May 22. At the time, the VA said the stolen data involved up to 26.5 million veterans discharged since 1975, as well as some of their spouses."
posted by grahamhgreen @ 6/06/2006 08:06:00 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
AS a VA employee, it is irreprehensible what the VA headquarters has not done with this criminal act. It is a known fact within the world of the employee-side of the VA, that all bags are checked by VA police, where they are posted. However, it is also known and an everyday occurence that any and all bags on the departing side are NOT checked. It is also a fact that there already electronic security seminars every 6 months that are mandantory attendance, so when the VA tells the Associated Press that they will be giving these seminars, it is to shut up the press. It is a known fact, and has been seen by this writer, that VA personnel do carry in their own laptops, for their own use on their lunchtime, both in New Orleans, and here in Alexandria. Here, in Alexandria Louisiana, there are no guards, and you may enter the hospital building from any entrance that is open during day hours without even seeing a VA police guard.
To post a measly reward of a total of $50,000.00 for all this information, and the resultant vigilance of each of our own credit histories till we drop dead, is assinine. For all the folks that are being put out to pasture for the deletion of their positions as a result of the storm, they are being paid a total of possibly 18,000.00 average, and they too, have now to deal with this second blow to their humanity.
I think that this is a greater crime, and with ten times less fanfare than the Watergate incident.
Now, since I am a veteran who is a victim of identity theft, by the very government who thirsts to control every human in this country, and it is my own identity as an employee who stands to have all this shit fall on me, who is going to set this right for me, the government? This president Bush, the theocrat?
I think that there is a great inhumanity done, and there is not enough media coverage, legal coverage, and financial retribution for the fucking that we veterans have received at the hand of this National Guard President.
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