[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 72 (Thursday, June 8, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H3501]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            VA DATA SECURITY

  (Mr. SALAZAR asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  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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