$172 Million Contract Proposal
We, including Cincinnati Change, will go forward this week to ask the President of the United States (POTUS) to create a US sponsored enterprise like a Fannie Mae and or enter into a contract like that with the Federal Reserve.
We are creating the organization that will hire RE Saffold & Company, LLC (a enterprise in formation by RE Saffold Associates, Inc.) Lloyd Daniels Development Group, Inc,. Hargrove Engineering, LLC, Daniels Henderson Consulting Group, LLC, and companies such as Entrust America, Inc. to create a solution to the current problem at the Veterans Administration.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee, a data analyst, took home electronic data from the VA, which he was not authorized to do. This behavior was in violation of their (VA) policies. They say the data contained identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings.
Importantly, they say, the affected data did not include any of VA's electronic health records nor any financial information. The employee's home was burglarized and this data was stolen. The employee has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation. Appropriate law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the VA Inspector General's office, have launched full-scale investigations into this matter.
Authorities believe it is unlikely the perpetrators targeted the items because of any knowledge of the data contents. It is possible that they remain unaware of the information which they posses or of how to make use of it. However, out of an abundance of caution, the VA is taking all possible steps to protect and inform our veterans. We believe it could be a 3 trillion dollar breach of security.
The VA is working with members of Congress, the news media, veterans service organizations, and other government agencies to help ensure that those veterans and their families are aware of the situation and of the steps they may take to protect themselves from misuse of their personal information.
The VA will send out individual notification letters to veterans to every extent possible. Veterans can also go to http://www.firstgov.gov/ as well as http://www.va.gov/opa/ to get more information on this matter. The firstgov web site is being set to handle increased web traffic. Additionally, working with other government agencies, the VA has set up a manned call center that veterans may call to get information about this situation and learn more about consumer identity protections.
That toll-free number is 1-800-FED INFO (333-4636). The call center will be open beginning today, and will operate from 8 am to 9 pm (EDT), Monday-Saturday as long as it is needed. The call center will be able to handle up to 20,000 calls per hour (260,000 calls per day).
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs R. James Nicholson has briefed the Attorney General and the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, co-chairs of the President's Identity Theft Task Force. Task Force members have already taken actions to protect the affected veterans, including working with the credit bureaus to help ensure that veterans receive the free credit report they are entitled to under the law.
Cincinnati Change is creating a private sector Task Force to meet 31 May 2006, to coordinate a comprehensive response, recommend further ways to protect affected veterans, and increase safeguards to prevent the reoccurrence of such incidents.
We will go to the VA Director under the leadership of our non Executive Co-Chairman Brother Bob Saffold this Thursday on a schedule being developed to met the needs of Vets.
We will create a enterprise that will provide this potential loss of over 3 trillion dollars worth of data can be mitigated through a business solution devised by the partners involved for a million servicemen in a $172 million ID Security fix to the aforementioned problem. This would be based on a IDIQ contract that would be executed as a POTUS Executive Order and federal contract.
The contract goes up to $2.6 billion dollars for service for the 26 million vets with leadership from the Regional President of the 501(c)19 US Veterans and other IRS approved organizations.
