Free Monitoring of Credit Proposed for Nation's Veterans

Not content with Equifax?s offer of discounted credit reports for the 26.5 million veterans affected by the VA?s recent embarrassing Case of the Missing Laptop, an article running in the Des Moines Register is reporting that two senators are pushing to give free credit reports to veterans whose information was stolen during the home burglary of a VA analyst ? who shouldn?t have taken the data outside the office in the first place.

It?s unlikely that the thieves knew about the data contained in the laptop at the time they swiped it from the analyst?s D.C.-area residence. Of course, subsequent news reports have hammered home again and again how valuable the data is ? so unless the burglars have lapsed on their home newspaper delivery, or only get their news from watching The Daily Show, the chances of the data being disseminated to nefarious others are pretty high. This puts all 26.5 million veterans and their families at high-risk for identity theft.

The proposal to offer the free credit reports comes from Democratic Senators Tom Harkin of Iowa, and John Kerry of Massachusetts. The cost of the credit protection could be as high as $1.25 billion dollars; the bill is expected to be approved early next week.

You can read the full story at Free monitoring of credit proposed for nation’s veterans.