CRAIG SUPPORTS VA SECRETARY’S ACTIONS TO SOLVE INFORMATION LOSS

May 31, 2006
Media contact: Jeff Schrade - 202-224-9093

(Paris, France) U.S. Senator Larry Craig, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said today that he fully supports VA Secretary Jim Nicholson in his efforts to address the loss of up 26.5 million Social Security numbers and other personal information.

So far two VA employees have resigned and another has been placed on administrative leave.

"Secretary Nicholson is taking decisive action and I fully support what he has done so far. The bureaucracy has to get the message that in the 21st Century, information moves at lightening speed and as a result, there must be systems in place to ensure that the data is extremely well protected," Craig said. "I suspect that there will be other changes coming."

In testimony last week before a joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Secretary Nicholson said he was "mad as hell" about the way his staff handled the situation.

Those who have resigned so far include Michael McLendon, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, and the policy analyst who took the VA records home, and then lost it after a burglary occurred at his house.

The break-in and loss of data occurred on May 3, but Secretary Nicholson was not informed until May 16. The theft is being investigated by the FBI, the VA inspector general and Montgomery County, Maryland police.

A $50,000 reward is being offered for the recovery of the material.

Sen. Craig made his comments while traveling in Europe, where he and a group of senators are investigating first hand American veteran cemeteries that are the final resting sites of tens of thousands of Americans, most of whom died while fighting there during World Wars I and II.

The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs has jurisdiction over those final resting places and Craig’s delegation is the first official group from the committee to see the cemeteries first hand. The oldest was built at the end of World War I – more than eighty years ago.

Larry Scott