Months after the public knew the United States Office of Personnel Management loss of the background investigation records of people who applied for security clearances OPM still hasn’t notified everyone affected. Everyone on my team at work has or at one time had a security clearance and hardly a week goes by without someone asking, “Have you got your OPM letter yet?” Yesterday was one of those days and I told them, “No”, as usual, and further elaborated that I wouldn’t be surprised if they never got a letter to me.
This is because since I had my clearance I have moved five times and no government issued ID has my current address. Nevertheless, yesterday I checked my mail and found my OPM letter (PIN number has been removed):
I suspect they used my address I used for the IRS.
Interesting. I have received my letter, but I still live at the same address as was on my last security update. I’m also a retiree.
Nice of them to work so hard to deliver this information in a mere 6 months or so.
If they had any actual integrity, they would offer to cover damages, not merely some “monitoring” service for a short while.
I’ve gotten two thus far. One for me and one for the wife, both tied to my clearance…..
Pingback: SayUncle » Letters
Yes, I got mine late week before last.
Typical bureaucraps.
And no, I didn’t misspell that.
Just a reminder; Let your references used on the SF86 be aware that whatever personal infoo developed by the investigator has been compromised as well.
My son hasn’t gotten his letter yet. My wife finally got notice from the post office for their incident — they took their time too. I got one for my insurance company’s incident. My wife got one for one of her health care provider’s incidents. We got one for Target a while back too.
People don’t understand why I don’t do banking on my cell phone or computer. They tell me it’s real easy …
I’m CG Aux, I figured I was compromised but was told it was extremely unlikely. Got my letter last Friday. Oh well, not much you can do about it. Just another fact of life in the modern world.
This is why I always refuse to provide my SSN whenever I can. Unfortunately far too many people think they are entitled to have it — for example, medical offices suffer from that delusion.
What we need is a law (I can’t believe I said that!) which forbids anyone from asking for your SSN unless specifically listed as an authorized user. Authorized would be the social security office and maybe the IRS, and that’s all.
I realized a while back that what we have is not “identity theft” but rather “identification theft”. It’s the government that has created this crime by forcing us to have universal identification and putting that information in the hands of thousands of untrustworthy third parties.