In the face of a statement to a congressional committee by Secretary R. James Nicholson of the Department of Veterans Affairs (previous item), Veterans of Foreign Wars commander James R. Mueller wrote Nicholson, calling the compromise of 26.5 veterans’ records “an act of negligence of historic proportions.” Continuing, he wrote, “Yet we see the leadership of the VA maneuvering to place the responsibility on one low-level ‘data analyst’ and deflect responsibility by pretending that this is somehow just a training deficiency at VA Central Office. What precisely is this ‘project’ that apparently required the employee to take this sensitive data away from the office, and specifically what information was lost? If what we see in the media is true, the VA’s account of what happened is not consistent with the known facts.” Mueller said the VFW will continue pressing for an investigation to disclose:
Why the data was being analyzed;
Why the employee took the data home;
Which supervisor(s) knew or should have known the data had been removed from the building;
What security arrangements should have been in place;
Why those security arrangements were not enforced;
What new procedures are required to better protect sensitive veterans’ data;
Who, besides this single employee, failed in their duty; and,
Who is going to be held responsible?