At this point, the government has lost the identity of pretty much everyone in the United States. Every citizen right now will likely find a Serbian clone using his social security number six thousand miles away. After all, federal employees have lost almost two thousand laptops in the last 5 years alone.

In response to their own hysterically tragic incompetency, Representative Tom Davis has put forward a bill called “The Federal Agency Data Breach Protection Act” that aims to clamp down on data theft. How? The act itself has no flippin’ clue: all it suggests is that they “institute procedures” for agencies to follow in the event of data breaches.

But at least the Feds agree that victims should be informed when their identities have been stolen. How soon after the crisis? What liabilities will the government have? Posh, those are details, my son.

We’d sneer at this vague list of common sense guidelines if it weren’t for the fact that this might be the first time common sense has been committed to paper in the history of Congress. Still, if you idiots can’t remember to bring your laptops off the airplane with you, maybe you at least ought to take a stab at a real list of measures to take when that laptop ends up on ebay.ru?

Data Breach Bill Does Little [Consumer Affairs]

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