AREA LAWMAKERS SAY THEY'RE BEING HEARD
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 -- 8:22 AM
A couple of area state lawmakers say hearings held around the state have been successful in urging Congress to consider possibly returning to random identification numbers for military personnel.Sen. Ron Brown (R-Eau Claire) and Rep. Terry Musser (R-Melrose) have been informed that language has been included in the 2007 Defense Authorization bills calling for the Department of Defense to produce a report on the topic.
The random ID numbers would help alleviate some of the risks associated with using Social Security numbers as ID numbers, the lawmakers say.
The hearings were held after news broke that a laptop computer with millions of military records was stolen from an off-duty official. The federal Veterans Administration (VA) later announced it had recovered the computer with the missing records, though no one was sure whether or not the data had been accessed.
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