Edwards: "Inexcusable" That 26.5 Million Veterans & 2.2 Million Military Personnel Are Jeopardized by VA Data Theft

Edwards: "Inexcusable" That 26.5 Million Veterans & 2.2 Million Military Personnel Are Jeopardized by VA Data Theft

U.S. Representative Chet Edwards (TX17), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs, today expressed his deep concern regarding the data breach at the Department of Veterans Affairs that has jeopardized the personal information of 26.5 million veterans and 2.2 million military personnel.

"This breach of faith with our veterans and service men and women is simply inexcusable. It was not just the mistake of one person taking a laptop home but rather a failure of an entire security system. No individual should have the ability to put at risk the privacy of millions of veterans and service personnel, and any system worth its salt would have made it impossible to do so," said Edwards.

Edwards has joined others in requesting that the GAO conduct an independent investigation to review the VA's data security practices following the historic data breach.

"The Government Accountability Office is in a position to quickly determine what went wrong, without interjecting partisan politics into the situation. Once Congress has the facts, we should put in place control systems to ensure this never happens again and then hold accountable those who had direct responsibility for protecting the privacy of our veterans," commented Edwards.

Edwards has also cosponsored legislation, H.R. 5455, to provide relief to those veterans and servicemembers affected by the VA data breach. "The VA, not our veterans and troops, should be responsible for any losses caused by this data breach. Our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world have enough to worry about without having to be concerned with identity or financial theft," concluded Edwards.

http://edwards.house.gov/html/release.cfm?id=815