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First it was a letter from DSW, then my mortgage company Wells Fargo. Today, it's the Department of Veteran's Affairs (I served 9 years in the Air National Guard). That's three times that my personal information has been stolen in the past two years. The only real line of "defense" here is for me to request copies of my credit report on an annual basis, and review them to make suer there isn't anything on there that shouldn't be. It's a real hassle to do, and it shouldn't be MY responsibility.

I'm getting real tired of all the apologies and excuses from the corporations and businesses that are responsible for my identity information. It's a two part problem as I see it. The first is data security, and there need to be consequences for businesses who lose people's personal information when appropriate security measures were not in place to insure data privacy and security. I realize that many businesses take reasonable steps to prevent data loss and disclosure, but there are also plenty that do not.

The second problem has to do with credit reporting. I think it's great that Congress passed a law that requires free access to your credit information once a year, but that's not enough. I think it should be the responsibility of the credit reporting agencies to send me a copy of my credit report on an annual basis. There is absolutely no responsibility on their part right now to ensure fair and accurate information on credit reports. If you've ever tried to have a mistake on your credit report corrected, you know what I mean. Heck, if the Social Security Administration can send me an annual copy of my Social Security account status, I don't see any reason the major credit reporting agencies can't do something similar.

I apologize for my ranting here, but I'm fed up!