We’re a Helpless Victim

That’s OPM Director Katherine Archuleta’s claim regarding the hack of her agency’s computer systems that now appear to expose as many as 18 million…what shall we call these, since OPM has laid claim to the victimhood in this failure…Americans.

I don’t believe anyone is personally responsible[.]

Fox News cited her further:

Archuleta said only the perpetrators should be blamed—she said current failures result from decades of meager investment in security systems, but said changes are being made and in fact helped detect the latest breaches.

Then there are these, via The Wall Street Journal:

Way back in March 2014, OPM knew that Chinese hackers had accessed its system without having downloaded files.

And

While little noticed, the IRS admitted this spring it was also the subject of a Russian hack, in which thieves grabbed 100,000 tax returns and requested 15,000 fraudulent refunds. Officials have figured out that the hackers used names and Social Security data to pretend to be the taxpayers and break through weak IRS cyber-barriers. As Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has noted, the Health and Human Services Department and Social Security Administration use the same weak security wall to guard ObamaCare files and retirement information. Yet the Administration is hardly rushing to fix the problem.

There’s speculation elsewhere that Snowden’s thefts and travels have had a hand in these. Frankly, I think his hands are clean on this one, except perhaps as a sanity check for Russia and the PRC in the before and aftermath stages of these hacks. These hacks are the direct result of long-standing utter incompetence and of this administration’s disdain for anything having to do with security.

It’s long past time for folks to be fired for cause at the OPM and IRS—and elsewhere, if they show no concrete progress in a very short time—down to middle management level in the CIOs’ areas. Why so far down the food chain? If they haven’t been screaming bloody murder over these vulnerabilities, they’re either incompetent themselves, or they put their job security ahead of our nation’s security.

This incompetence also seems to necessitate a pretty thorough removal and replacement of Federal government officials and employees—through no fault of their own, but from OPM (et al.) incompetence. They’ve become vulnerable, and through them, our government has become vulnerable. The only way to reduce the threat to these people is to reduce their value to our enemies by removing them from government. That’s what Archuleta’s victimhood has wrought.

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