Congressman Dennis Cardoza
18th Congressional District of California

Rep. Cardoza stated, “This is an outrageous, unacceptable violation of the brave men and women who have served our country. As a victim of identity theft when I served in the California State Assembly– I understand how deeply troubling this can be.  The revelation that the private and personal records of millions of veterans had been taken home by a VA employee and then stolen is appalling.  Our veterans and their families deserve better.”

I am co-sponsoring a bill to address this egregious breach of privacy, along with calling for a full investigation so that the people in charge are held accountable,” Rep. Cardoza added.

This legislation 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.

Earlier this week, VA Secretary James Nicholson announced that sensitive data collected by the government for approximately 26.5 million veterans -- names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth as well as some disability ratings -- was stolen from the home of a VA official who had removed this data from the VA and taken it home.  A number of law enforcement agencies are working to recover this data.  While the FBI and the VA Inspector General’s office are looking into the matter, Rep. Cardoza is informing veterans and their families to take proactive steps to protect themselves from misuse of their personal information. 

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 8 am to 9 pm (EDT), Monday-Saturday.