Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
The Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) security clearance files were hacked 20 months ago. It is just now notifying the people whose personal identification information was stolen.
Best post title of the year!
I got my letter last week.
Great. I may still get one, then. I was hoping the work I did had me somewhat insulated, but probably not.
Any idea if they are going in last name, ZIP code, or SSN order and where they are in the list?
Yup, got my letter from the Postman. He knew it was important so he rode his horse clear up on the porch to de-liver it. Kwik, too!!
Wonder how far back it goes. I’ll ask my brother if he got The Letter. He separated about 1973.
Except he may not have gotten it yet, considering people are still receiving them. And assuming I am going to get one, I have yet to receive it.
My Marine got his letter about three weeks ago.
Recall the IRS was still using AS-400’s and have to make replacement parts. They have nice furniture and bonuses though. Have to admit the DoD was amusing in it’s sparkling effecieny and inspiring confidence.
Wash, rise, repeat – It was said once, Things go on, until they can’t anymore, but they never imagined it on this magnitude.
It’s not just that people’s PII got ripped off. That’s bad enough. The fact that it’s also everything you’d need to blackmail anyone with a remotely important post in the government is so much worse.
I’d be less unhappy about the whole thing if I didn’t think it was going to happen again five minutes down the road.
I also received the notice from OPM. In an amusing demonstration of bureaucratic inefficiency, the letter was sent to an address where I never lived — amusing because I’d rather laugh than cry.
Gee, I hope no-one has a smart device or security system that relies on fingerprints for authentication.
If I get a letter from OPM,then we really are in big trouble, since I never worked in the government.
Of course,we are in REALLY deep doo-doo if instead of a letter from OPM,we get a letter from the Chinese government.
I have yet to get the letter. The Chinese probably took a look at my information and returned it to OPM.
I got my letter a few weeks ago. I have only the most basic security clearance (or had when I was with the government), but the amount of detail in my file is still enough to give me credit trouble the rest of my life.
What astounds me is the fact my friends who are federal employees and not conservative, are much less aware of the extent of the breach, and don’t seem to think about implications beyond their credit record.
The same people who are victims of the breach continue to assert that the government is the solution to every problem.
The world is insane.
No, unfortunately I don’t know any details of how they’ve organized their list or how they’re progressing through it.
Eeyore:
According to the news reports I read, everyone who submitted an SF-86 since 2000 is at risk. If your brother separated in 1973, I’d guess he’s ok. Although, it’s not the kind of thing you want to take for granted.
I don’t think people realize that the Feds have started doing biometric IDing. It took three trips to the Military Entrance Processing Station before my son was considered to be officially enlisted, not because he didn’t “sign” the right papers, but because they didn’t get a clear enough finger print.
I am waiting to get mine, even though my clearance expired 10 years ago. However since the electronic form was so poorly designed I had to write on a print out some of the information so maybe my information was not in the main database. Some idiot programmer required a naturalization number if someone was born on a overseas U.S. military base because you could not put a place a birth outside the U.S. with-out one.
The one thing I am really hoping they did not get is my finger prints. The government lost mine the first time around and I had to get finger printed again 12 months later. So hopefully they lost them again.
So basically they are so incompetent in the first place, I am crossing my fingers that their incompetence “misplaced” my information.
Personal data integrity is obviously in shambles. What worries me as a recent clearance holder, beyond my data rocketing around the ISIS net at the speed of light, is the trove of data they have to create normal or believable appearing CV’s for immigrating deadly Jihadists. Think they might outsmart DHS? Thanks for that, Satan-obama.
Mine arrived three days ago.
Matthew, the really disturbing thought in your post — and I don’t disagee — is this one:
If it isn’t, what kind of government would be? And is the answer, “Only one that none of us would want to live under?”
That is actually the poisoned chalice – NOT because a totalitarian state is the only government that could do the job, but because people believe that if government had absolute power, it could achieve more things.
History tells us otherwise. Governments with absolute power are often effective tyrannies, but they are no better at achieving basic tasks than much more limited organizations.
If we want to best protect our assets, then harness the private sector. Even for the government, using the government is rarely the best way to get something done.
I got a few things via email, including credit monitoring for a few years gratis.
Strictly speaking, the logical thing to do is to offer affected individuals the ability to apply for a new social security number. I know they can’t change my fingerprints, but I know they can issue a new SSN. Unlike private companies that let that info get out, in this case the people who can actually order the creation of a new number allowed the breach and could, by allowing the creation of a new number, fix a good portion of the problem.
Not that I trust the government database that will hold the info linking my new number to my old number, but it’s certainly better than shrugging your shoulders and offering me free identity theft insurance.
It’s like being in a club with 20 million members…
As for the three year identity theft protection, will I get a new SSN, date of birth, and other Peronal Identification Information after that period is up? No? So the likely nation-state adversary behind this could still use it to my personal detriment, or for those of you still in government service to the detriment of the national security.
Considering how a credit check is part of maintaining and gaining a clearance, they could just drop all that info onto the web for cybercriminals to use. Thereby throwing the defense system in chaos as supervisors throughout at least the uniformed services must counsel their subordinates on their failure to pay “their” credit card bills and the resulting suspension of their inability to handle & access classified material while their case is adjudicated…
That’s why they’re giving up:
“Defense Dept. Throws in the Towel—on Defense“
Hey, y’all! Guess what I got today! Finally.