"The Government Screws Up." AGAIN?!

October 15, 2006.

It's raining.

Cold winds whipping from the North.

There are snow flakes.

All is grey and depressing.

I'm sipping dark rum on the rocks.

No this is not Ernest Hemigway! It's Ernest Schmidway depressed that the headlines never change!

The AP wire story today - "Government Losses of Personal Data Cited"

Really!?

• "Federal workers at 19 agencies have lost personal information affecting thousands of employees and the public, according to a report released Friday by the House Government Reform Committee. Most of the data was lost or stolen. In a few cases, it was accessed by computer hackers, the report said. Government contractors were responsible for many of the security breaches."

According to the AP, the committee reported 788 incidents involving " ... loss or compromise of sensitive personal information since Jan. 1, 2003. That was in addition to “hundreds of security and privacy incidents” at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the report said."

Seven Hundred and Eighty Eight INCIDENTS!

What the heck does that mean?!

How many millions of sensitive pieces of personal information were compromised?!

How many American are now vulnerable to all kinds of identity intrusions - financial, religious, full identity theft?

And you know what burnes the hell out of me?

The story was a small almost invisible piece on page 22 of the New York Times. Of course, it failed to make it anywhere into most newspapers and was nowhere on any TV programs.

On Page One on the Times we have a story about how electricity markets have failed to deliver savings and another story about the Duke lacrosse team outta control behavior re exotic dancer, alleged rape, etc. is a bigger problem with athletes all over American colleges and universities! Oh yeah, there was also a story about how salmon find an ally in Russia's Far East, an urgent late breaking story for sure!

So, even the New York Times editors don't get it!