Veterans' Records Stolen -- Identity Theft Alert

The breaking news today is that an employee of the VA took information home without authorization and immediately let it get stolen by burglars.

The stolen information included the names, birthdates and Social Security numbers for over 26 million veterans. In short, the ideal recipe for massive identity theft.

All living veterans who were discharged after 1976 are affected by this crime -- and at 26.5 million, that's a lot of people.

The government has set up a special alert on the firstgov.gov website at http://www.firstgov.gov/veteransinfo.shtml, but if you look at it closely it's pretty circular with the internal links that send you back to firstgov.gov and then back to the page.

The VA is saying, in essence, "don't worry -- we're from the government and we're here to help". But rather than trust them, the wise veteran will monitor his/her credit closely over the next few months.

I kind of feel sorry for the poor sap who was burglarized; he will no doubt lose his job over this -- it's too big an issue for him not to be severely disciplined -- but on the other hand you have to ask what the fuck were you thinking???