Giffords Calls on Congress to Protect and Defend Our Veterans’ Privacy

Burglary of Personal, Private Information of Twenty-Six Million Vets Leads to Call for Increased Security Measures

TUCSON €“ Congressional Candidate Gabrielle Giffords today called on Congress to protect the privacy of the 26.5 million veterans whose personal data was stolen from the home of a Veterans Administration employee earlier this month by immediately passing the Veterans’ Identity Protection Act of 2006.

“I was shocked when I learned that the private information of millions of veterans had been taken home by a VA employee and then stolen,” Giffords said. “Arizona’s veterans and their families deserve better €“ Washington should give them the respect they deserve and immediately pass the protections called for in the Veterans’ Identity Protection Act.

“It is troubling that the Administration seemed more interested in covering up this breach of security than in doing the right thing €“ protecting the people who have risked their lives for our country,” said Giffords. She noted that it was two weeks before the Administration informed the FBI about the theft and 19 days before the Administration informed the veterans whose personal information €”including names, dates of birth, and Social Security Numbers €”was stolen.

“This poor demonstration of judgment shows how our leaders in Washington are disconnected from people in Southern Arizona. We need to put partisanship aside for the men and women who have defended our country with their lives,” she said. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson is a former Chairman of the Republican National Committee, who had held political party jobs previous to his appointment to the critical VA post.

“In Congress, I will fight for a government that works for all of us €“ not just the privileged and connected,” she said.

Giffords has a strong track record of working to protect consumers against identity theft. In the Arizona Legislature, she sponsored a bill to require businesses to shred or incinerate sensitive documents to prevent identity theft (HB2351). She also sponsored a measure to require law enforcement agencies to keep a database of identity-theft cases, to start collecting better information on the frequency of such cases (HB2614).

The Veterans’ Identity Protection Act of 2006 will protect veterans from identity theft by calling on the VA to:

• Provide veterans with one year of free credit monitoring — to alert them of changes in their credit in order to stop the theft before it gets out of control.
• Provide veterans with one free credit report each year for two years after the end of credit monitoring, in addition to the free credit report available under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
• Authorize $1.25 billion in emergency funds for the first year of implementation.

Veterans can visit www.firstgov.gov as well as www.va.gov/opa to get more information on this matter. The VA has set up a manned call center that veterans may call to get information about this situation and learn more about consumer identity protections: 1-800-FED-INFO (333-4636), from 5 am to 6 pm (Arizona time), Monday through Saturday.