VA Data Security

VA DATA SECURITY -- (House of Representatives - June 08, 2006)

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. Speaker, last week the VA revealed that private information for over 26 million veterans was stolen from an employee's home weeks ago, putting their identities and credit at risk.

Mr. Speaker, my father used to have a saying that the more that you poke at a cow pie, the more that it stinks. Well, for nearly 2 weeks the administration insisted that the stolen data only contained the veterans' names, birth dates and Social Security numbers.

On Tuesday, though, the administration revised their story again. So what is the real story? We know that the stolen data contained personal information of more than 2.2 million active duty personnel. Yesterday over 145 Members joined me in a letter to President Bush urging him to take action and help those affected to recover from this security breach.

We have introduced legislation, H.R. 5455, that would be the first step in giving veterans access to 1 year of free credit monitoring. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill.

Mr. Speaker, this last month has been an embarrassing display of the VA consistently failing to provide timely information about the severity and scope of the data. The delays and misinformation have hurt veterans and military personnel. It has hurt them at a time when we should be taking aggressive steps to protect their identities and financial standing.

Our veterans and our troops deserve answers and action right now.

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