Credit Monitoring For Endangered Vets Canceled

The Bush administration has nixed one year of free credit monitoring for the 26.5 million veterans whose personal information was on a laptop computer and external hard drive stolen from the home of a Department of Veterans Affairs employee last May. White House budget director Rob Portman wrote House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., July 18, withdrawing the request for $160.5 million to pay for the monitoring, because the laptop and hard drive had been recovered. The FBI said it had a “high degree of confidence” that thieves had not accessed the files. The Veterans of Foreign Wars expressed outrage, asserting that a “high degree” is not 100 percent, especially since the thieves had the files for eight weeks. The VFW says the administration is taking an “all safe” stand, “despite computer industry experts saying the exact opposite.”