The Washington Post: Free Advice for Criminals

Once again the mainstream media lives up to its intelligence. This is from last night's Best of the Web at Opinionjournal.com:

If You're a Crook, Don't Read This
A Washington Post editorial warns of a potentially catastrophic snafu at the Department of Veterans Affairs:

Yesterday the department's boss, R. James Nicholson, announced that every living veteran is at risk of identity theft after an employee took a data file containing names, birthdays and Social Security numbers home, where it was stolen. Mr. Nicholson says that the employee was not authorized to take this information home, but his department clearly failed to do enough to enforce its own guidelines. It now promises to restrict access to sensitive data to those who need it and to conduct background checks on those who do. It's extraordinary that this approach did not prevail already.

Some 26.5 million veterans risk being defrauded. If they are lucky, the thief may not realize the value of the stolen file, and it won't be used by criminals to drain veterans' bank accounts or borrow money in their names.

In other words, if they're lucky, the thief doesn't read the Washington Post! The Chicago Tribune reports that John Kerry* put out a statement demanding, "Someone needs to be fired." But if Kerry were smart, he'd release his military records now, lest the thief do it at a time of his choosing.

* Haughty, French-looking, Vietnam, 478 days ago.

"Digital Incompetence" indeed.