According to this slashdot story: ‘”Remember how the VA was pinning the theft of 26.5 million veterans’ personal records on a hard working-but-renegade employee whose laptop was stolen? Surprise! It turns out that the employee had written permission to bring the sensitive data home. Fortunately, the laptop has been recovered. It is still unclear how the laptop was recovered, or if any of the veterans’ personal data was leaked.”‘ The best quote I heard is that databases like this one are becoming like plutonium, very concentrated and potentially very destructive in the wrong hands.