House panel plans hearings on VA records theft

Army Times reports

Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., a member of Buyer’s committee, introduced a bill Tuesday that would require the VA to provide free credit monitoring and credit reporting for any veterans whose personal information was on the stolen computer. The bill, HR 5455, will be discussed at Thursday’s hearings.

Salazar’s Veterans Identity Protection Act of 2006 would require one year of free credit monitoring and one free annual credit report for two years. It also would provide $1.25 billion in emergency spending.

A bill HR 5464 (similar to HR 5455) was introduced May 24th.

For those of you keeping track of numbers: the retail price for credit monitoring for 26.5 million people for one year is over $3 billion. Obviously, the negotiated price for this will be less and the number that take advantage of it will be less than the total. Still, the credit reporting agencies are no doubt drooling over this opportunity.

Update: I don’t want to forget the Air Force Times.