IG Denounces VA’s Security

A report by Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General George Opfer castigates the department for mishandling the theft of personal data for more than 26 million veterans in May. It recommends disciplinary action against VA officials who displayed “no sense of urgency” about the theft. Furthermore, it says the information, which was on a personal storage device, should not have left the VA headquarters. Rep. Lane Evans of Illinois, ranking Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said: “When the employee from whom the data is stolen reports it to VA managers and law enforcement within an hour, yet higher-ups, in a disastrous sequence of bungles and indifference, take one week to elevate it seven floors in the same building and another week to walk it a few steps over to the secretary — not to mention an additional six days to inform Congress and the public — then it becomes clear there was and is within VA a bigger crisis than even the theft of such a massive amount of data.”