VA Affairs Computer Missing

The Post is treating this one as Yet Another Bungle by the Department of Veterans Affairs, but I'm not so sure. If a desktop disappeared from the office of a subcontractor--that's Unisys, folks--it seems rather mean-spirited and probably just wrong to kick the VA one more time. Here's the story:

Another Department of Veterans Affairs computer is missing -- this one containing the personal information of as many as 38,000 patients at VA hospitals in Pennsylvania, the department said yesterday.

The FBI and the VA inspector general are investigating the disappearance last week of a desktop computer from the Reston office of Unisys Corp., a subcontractor that assists in insurance collections for VA medical centers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said in a statement. Local police also are working the case.

The issue here appears to be security of an ordinary kind: that is to say, building security, anti-theft measures, that sort of thing. We're not talking about a VA employee with a zillion names and associated personal info on his laptop.

Rather, this incident shows pretty clearly that when computers are involved, we can have lots of eggs in very small (and easy to carry) baskets; and that as a culture, we haven't adapted very well to this reality.