VA Offers Free Credit Monitoring

Veterans whose personal information was stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee's home last month will receive free credit monitoring from the government to protect against identity theft, the government said Wednesday.

Names, Social Security numbers and birthdates for up to 26.5 million veterans and military troops were taken from a data analyst's suburban Maryland home on May 3. Those eligible for the credit monitoring will be any of the 17 million people who are known to have had their Social Security numbers compromised.

Those people, who have already received warning letters from the department this month, will be sent information on how to receive the service, said a government official close to the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The VA will announce details of the proposal at a news conference later this morning.

Veterans groups and lawmakers from both parties have blasted the VA for theft, which occurred after several years of warnings by auditors that information security was lax. The data analyst — who has since been fired — had taken the information home for three years without permission.

The VA has also been criticized for waiting nearly three weeks — until May 22 — to notify veterans about the theft.

Earlier this month, more than 150 House Democrats called on President Bush to request new emergency funding to provide credit monitoring to veterans.

On Wednesday, the government official said the VA was working with the Office of Management and Budget to identify money to pay for the credit monitoring so that it will not "in any way impact the world class health care of veterans."

The VA has said that notifying roughly 17 million veterans and military troops of the data theft, as well as setting up a call center to answer questions, has cost the government $14 million. An additional $200,000 a day is being spent to maintain the call center.