VA Adopts Kerry Bill to Provide Free Credit Monitoring

6/21/06

The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced that they will adopt a proposal called for by Senator John Kerry weeks ago -- providing free credit monitoring to the millions of veterans and active duty troops who recently had their names, social security numbers and birthdates stolen.

Below is a statement from Senator John Kerry on today’s announcement:

“I’m glad the administration is now responding to the outrage over this. I wish the agency had acted sooner to protect veterans. There is no easy or cheap solution to this problem. But we shouldn’t let these victims of someone’s stupidity and the VA’s bumbling also become victims of identity theft.”

John Kerry’s legislation -- the Veterans Identity Protection (VIP) Act S.2970 – offers free credit monitoring for one year to every American affected by this theft. It also provides a second free credit report to each person for the second and third years, in addition to the free credit report already available under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Kerry introduced it May 23.

Kerry also wrote to President Bush on June 1, urging the President to direct his VA Secretary to immediately begin negotiations with credit monitoring services to reach a fair price for their service. Credit monitoring on average costs between $50.00 to $150.00 per person each year. Kerry wrote in his letter, “the very least we can do is come together as Americans to make sure we protect the identity security of those who have defended our national security.”

http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/home.cfm