In OPM hack, who guards the guards?

People who live in or visit Washington, D.C., or whose corporations, agencies or departments are based here quickly realize that we do things differently. We are run by a board of directors of 535 strangers (members of Congress), all of whom—save one—come from someplace else. Many of them promise they will never “go” Washington. They pledge to fight it even as they fight to get elected to come here. So they can hate it from up close, I guess?

One of the most recent examples is The Great OPM Hack(s). Depending on whose data you use, information on roughly 22.1 million current, former and wanna-be feds and retirees was stolen in two separate cyber attacks. That data includes names, addresses, birthdays and Social Security numbers of millions of people. They include current workers, retirees, people who once worked for the government and people who applied for government jobs or government security clearances. It’s an identity thief’s dream come true.

The appropriate groups and politicians—especially those from D.C., Maryland and Virginia—expressed justifiable outrage and concern. Labor unions and retiree groups too. For good reason. Many people decided that an example had to be made: Off with the head of OPM director Katherine Archuleta. She resigned last week.

Now what?

The minimum demand is for lifetime (as opposed to 18 months to three years) of credit monitoring and some financial liability protection for all concerned. Maybe.

Then what?

Congress (despite, or perhaps because of, its short attention span) might want to quickly check out how good the credit monitoring systems are, what protection is offered to people whose identities (and money) are stolen, and the contractors—current and future—who were, or will be, paid big bucks (your tax dollars) to protect what has already been hacked. Congress might also look into who hired those contractors, when and why.

It’s a political fact of life that problems (or the threat of them) can translate into tons of money for real and alleged problem-solvers.

During the Cold War, for example, missile-toting submarines were regularly spotted off the U.S. coast. That was not unexpected. But the sightings often peaked when Congress was considering appropriations on missile defenses, etc.

The federal government is now by far the biggest customer of a lot of private sector firms and operations. Many of them would be small potatoes, or out of business, without contracts from Uncle Sam.

Many of the contractors promise to make programs safer, more secure and leak proof. Many do excellent work and take pride in it. Except sometimes, like in the case of Edward Snowden, late of NSA and now a resident of Russia.

With Archuleta’s enforced departure a fact, and long-term credit monitoring likely, much of the heat will be off the OPM hack. Too bad, but that’s how things work here.

But there is one question lots of long-time feds are asking:

Who guards the guards?

Nearly Useless Factoid:

 By Emily Kopp

On May 24, 1844, inventor Samuel Morse sent the first official telegraph from the U.S. Capitol to his assistant in Baltimore, MD.

“What hath God wrought?” he asked.

Morse let a friend’s daughter, Annie Ellsworth, choose that message. It comes from the Bible, Numbers XXIII, 23.

Source: Library of Congress

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