Akkam’s Razor

It’s tempting to come up with exotic ideas regarding the theft.  A database of veteran soldiers would be both politically and militarily useful.  For example, a resourceful political operative could take that database of veterans and calculate those likely to have served in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and the Great War on Terror and target patriotic messages to them.  They could also use it to segregate officers from the enlisted men, as the officers vote more strongly Conservative.  Militarily, the whispers of clandestine plans for call ups of those discharged decades ago still persist - a database such as this could weed out the disabled veterans and locate those able to serve if needed.

No, as conspiratorially possible as those actions may be, they are all unlikely.  I remembered back to a story I had heard a few weeks ago.  I kept wondering as to the ‘project’ the data analyst was working on, and why one would need such a volume of veterans. Then, I think I found it…

Via the Times Record News:

The Veterans Disability Benefits Commission is set to decide today whether information will be gathered about the level of Social Security Disability Insurance veterans get.

The data would be included in a report slated for completion in 2007 that looks at services and benefits offered to veterans.

“Veterans are very concerned about what (the commission) is going to put into their report,” said Wichitan Delilah Washburn, president of the National Association of State Women Veterans Coordinators Inc.

Many veterans groups are alarmed by the possible use of Social Security data, fearing that it could signal a move to reduce benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Concern is rampant that the government might force disabled veterans who are employed to rely on Social Security disability payments rather than veterans’ disability benefits, said Steve Smithson, deputy director for claims services for the national American Legion group.

[...]

“It was brought up a couple of months back,” he said, describing a situation in which veterans who had a 100 percent service-related injury would not be allowed to receive VA benefits and work at the same time.

While the impact on veterans could be considered negligible…

The commission reported the Bureau of the Census’ Current Population Survey estimates that more than 280,000 - 15 percent - of the 1.8 million service-connected disabled veterans under age 65 receive Social Security Disability income.

Such actions would certainly be troubling for an Administration and political party that claims it “supports the troops”, especially those who gave nearly all.

It’s interesting to note that the finding of the commission (PDF), made on 5/19, 16 days after the theft occured, and eventually released via press release on 5/23, one day AFTER the theft had been made public, decided to NOT collect information regarding disability status, income, employment, and Social Security status.

In a show of hands vote of 11 to 2 at its May 19th public meeting, the Commission agreed to adopt a motion to clarify that there would be no mention or question of an offset of VA or SSDI benefits and to limit data collection from the Social Security Administration and SSDI in several key ways.

The motion explicitly directs the Commission to move forward with a study of SSDI benefits for the sole purpose of improving access and timeliness of these benefits to veterans. To accomplish this task, the Commission granted its contract research firm, the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), permission to proceed with the collection of aggregate data that does not include income or medical diagnostic matching.

It’s also interesting to note that all of this action is the result of Congressional Legislation (see this PDF of correspondence between the Senate and House Armed Services Committees and the Veterans Administration.  It’s also interesting to note that the VA was explicitly warned to take privacy concerns into account.

Happy Memorial Day, Veterans.  At least the rest of us salute you.