Patrick Leahy: “Today for the second week in a row the Senate Judiciary Committee's agenda included a proposed amendment to the…”

“Today for the second week in a row the Senate Judiciary Committee's agenda included a proposed amendment to the Constitution, to its fundamental purpose and to our rights as Americans. I understand that Republicans are trying to keep to a political timetable for raising divisive matters in the runup to the November elections. I know that in election years they love to wave the flag amendment, rather than work on veterans health care or protecting veterans' privacy. We have just witnessed the largest theft of private information from the Government ever, the loss of information on more than 26 million American veterans. Compounding the incompetence was the misguided decision by the Veterans' Administration for secrecy in trying to cover this up for the last 3 weeks. This follows on the heels of last year's debacle of a billion-dollar shortfall in VA's budget for veterans health care, after repeated denials. It all adds up to a ``heckuva bad job'' for America's veterans. The President should call Secretary Nicholson into the woodshed for a serious shakeup in how the VA is run. In the meantime, Secretary Nicholson needs to answer why this information was left vulnerable to such a breach, why such a delay in notification was allowed to occur, and what specific steps he is taking to ensure such a breach does not happen again.…”