CALIFORNIA IS YOUR DATA COLLECTED BY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN SAFE HANDS http://www.lompocrecord.com/articles/2006/10/17/opinions/101706b.txt

Your data isn't safe

Last May, when officials at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reported the theft of a laptop computer containing personal data on more than 25 million active and retired military personnel, there was much hand-wringing in Congress about security.

If the full story had been known, those lawmakers might have been tearing out their hair and rending their pinstripe suits instead.

What many believed was an isolated incident apparently is commonplace within federal agencies. A report from the House Government Reform Committee indicates that lost or stolen personal data has occurred in all 19 of the federal government's major departments. And most of the nearly 800 recent cases had never been publicly reported.

The scope of the problem began to surface shortly after the VA laptop theft, when similar reports came in from Social Security, the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services. Millions of Americans' personal data has either been lost or stolen, in the latter case usually to be sold to various mass marketing companies.

The report makes it abundantly clear that the information the federal government collects on you, and that federal officials claim is secure from prying eyes, is most assuredly not safe.

That kind of data vulnerability is simply not acceptable.
Americans expect their private information to be kept private. Data losses on this scale could trigger an identity theft crisis of staggering proportions.

Members of Congress need to stop wringing their hands and start closing the security gaps.