Liberty's Blog: No Comfort from the VA

Monday, June 12, 2006

No Comfort from the VA

I was quite concerned to read that veterans’ social security numbers and other private info were recently stolen from a VA employee. I understand that people and institutions make mistakes and I am not writing today to complain about that incident.

I am writing to ask that you all introduce a method by which veterans can opt-out of the VA’s database. I have a copy of my discharge papers (DD-214), I have registered copies of DD-214s in several county courthouses, the military records archivists have my service records, and you all could open a hard copy paper file on me as well. If there ever arose a need for returning my information to the VA database, we could do that.

I don’t anticipate that ever happening. It seems to me that the risk of entrusting some institutions with my personal info outweighs the benefits. This incident has spurred me into action and I would like to start by asking the Department of Veterans Affairs to removeme from any electronic databases they may have me in.

My inititial reaction was maybe Rob was over reacting a little bit. Afterall the Veterans Administration surely understood this breech of privacy and would make steps to mitigate and prevent this from ever happening again. Surely they understood the importance of privacy to the millions of veterans that they are chartered to serve. Next thing I know I get a letter from the VA explaining what happened, not to worry about it, and what to do if the crap hits the fan. What bothers me though is that they wouldn't have any idea what my address is. I haven't had any contact with them for about 25 years. They simply forwarded the information to the IRS! So that I (and 26 million others) could get their worthless letter. Sheesh, who wants the IRS to have even more information about them.