ConsumerAffairs.com:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has suspended its "Clear" registered airline traveler program after a laptop containing personal data on 33,000 pre-enrolled members of the program was stolen from San Francisco International Airport.

The laptop was discovered missing from a locked office at the airport on July 26. The computer, which was password-protected but not encrypted, contained data such as names, addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, and other information.

Verified Identity Pass, Inc (VIP)., the company running the "Clear" program, minimized the risk of identity theft from the stolen data. "There is no reason to believe this is anything other than the simple burglary of a laptop, which the local police are investigating," said (VIP) founder CEO Steven Brill. "For it to be more than that, the thief would have to hack into two different passwords—and even then would not get what identity thieves want most—a Social Security number and/or credit card information."

The hollowed-out Bush contractor "government" has just lost control of the  detailed personal information of what amounts to this country's top business travelers. And although the laptop was later found, nobody knows who might have the data, or what they're doing with it. The company says it thought it was just a "simple burglary of a laptop," of course. But this sounds a little suspicious, don't you think?

But just hours after that TSA announcement, the company found the laptop, which normally fits in an enrollment kiosk, in a filing cabinet in the same room it was thought to have been stolen from, according to spokeswoman Allison Beer. The TSA, the airport police and the San Mateo county police are still investigating, according to Beer.

From fitting in an enrollment kiosk to a filing cabinet in the same room?

Really.

Many questions remain, to be sure. But one issue has been rather clearly defined. Remember all those cocksure conservatives who declared they had no worries about the program (or any other program, for that matter), because they "had nothing to hide"?

Well, they're right. Not anymore they don't.

Government agencies are using brokers to buy phone records.
Surprised? Or OUTRAGED?

I just received the attached letter from Senator Leahy and the Green Mountain PAC.  Senator Leahy and the 3,000 members of the Green Mountain PAC have succeeded in doing something that will help the veterans and active duty personnel whose identities were stolen from the VA due to the criminal negligence of their personnel and Secretary Jim Nicholson.  Veterans will now have one year of free credit monitoring to help them cope with this problem.

Follow me below the fold to join, contribute, or read the whole text of the letter:

Well I finally got a notice from the VA about the data theft in the mail yesterday. This post will consist of the letter in full. The next post will cover the FAQ sheet that was crammed in with the letter. The good news is that they might have my Soc. Sec. #, but at least they don't have my health records! Repeat after me folks--RESIGNATION!

The letter is as follows:

Because of the serious breach of computer security at the VA, http://www.nytimes.com/... if any veteran has an "Infectious Diseases" "Immune Disorders" or "Nutritional Deficiencies", that information could now become public because of the loss of recently-stolen "disability rating" information.  http://www.warms.vba.va.gov/...  Millions of veterans' medical and psychiatric diagnostic information was stolen from a VA employee when he  took the information home on computer disks.  Millions of veterans may be exposed to embarrassment and even extortion and blackmail because of this breach of the private medical and psychiatric privacy.