Worst Case Scenario (Part 2)

So, here we go again with companies looking to make a buck at the cost of our own privacy and potentially our own safety. This company, Intelius is selling personal cell phone numbers, with addresses, and sometimes with family member’s names for $15.00. Apparently, they’re compiling cell phone numbers from business to government agencies with some 90 million in hand already and an addition of another 70 million in the next few days.

If that isn’t bad enough, there are hundreds of companies called data brokers that will, for a little over $100 on the low end, sell to a consumer the last 100 out-going calls from a cell phone. All the consumer needs is the name, address, and phone number, available above for $15, and he or she can know who you last called!

This is absolutely ridiculous. Intelius says, “Oh, you’ll be able to check on your teen, see who they’re calling, or you can do a background check on a nanny.” I would think that if I wanted to see who my teen is calling, I would use the itemized statement I get from my cell phone provider. If there’s suspicion that they’re up to something illegal, I can always take the numbers to the police. As for checking on a nanny, there are background check services that are legal and licensed that I could use. I would be more concerned with the fact that over 62% of 11-14 year-olds have cell phones and granting pedophiles access to their personal information is irresponsible.

Data brokers claim things like, “Think your spouse is cheating? See who they’ve called!”

This type of psychological marketing is weak, deceptive, and outrageous. You’re trying to appeal to my sense of protection for my children or my marriage by violating my privacy? Give me a break!

Illinois has implemented some legal protection preventing people from “pre-texting” or pretending to be the account holder of the cell phone account with the intention of gaining access to cell phone records. Missouri has followed suit as have California, New Jersey, Washington, and perhaps others.

None the less, there is a family in Washington that has changed their cell phones and numbers three times and still have a stalker harassing them, their family, and friends. In some instances, hijacking the teenage daughter’s cell phone and using it to send threatening text messages or voice mails.

What about in the context of national security? Are we handing terrorists an invitation to call, threaten, and stalk military members and their families? This isn’t unheard of. It happened in the United Kingdom just last year and to families of Danish Troops just this month!

I think it is time to start writing letters and making phone calls to our representatives and senators demanding action protecting our privacy.

Personal Cell Phone Numbers Are Only a Click Away
Web site Sells Cell Phone Numbers and Other Personal Information

(ABC News)
From World News with Charles Gibson
Aug. 14, 2007

Home phone numbers have been available to the public for a long time, so many Americans treasure the fact that their cell numbers can be kept private -- or so they think. Now, all it takes is a few bucks and Internet access to find tens of millions of personal cell phone numbers.

A Web site named Intelius has created a clearinghouse of cell phone numbers that can be purchased online for $15 each. Its source -- every business and company you've ever provided with your personal information.

"We do pay for the data, everything from government agencies to third party companies, where we compile a lot of this information together," said Ed Peterson, vice president of sales and marketing at Intelius.

Intelius already has 90 million cell phone numbers, and it's adding 70 million more in the coming days, along with the addresses that go with them.

"Frankly, it's the Wild West when it comes to our personal information," said Avivah Litan, director of research at Gartner Inc.

Intelius claims it is providing a public service that will help parents track down who is calling their children, or families checking on a nanny, but many individuals are upset that their information can be bought online.

ABC's David Muir attempted to buy the records of three people he approached today in New York City, and they were shocked to learn he'd purchased every cell phone number and address they ever had.

Intelius even had the number of a minor.

"That's my son … he's 14," said Winsome Jones.

"You can't even assume that minors have privacy rights. Maybe this is a wake-up call once we see congressmen's cell phone numbers on the Internet. Maybe they'll finally start acting, but the data brokers are not regulated," Lihtan said. "No one's looking over their shoulder and saying you can or cannot do this."

And until Congress takes action, Intelius' business of selling personal information is perfectly legal.

If you want to opt-out of having your information listed in Intelius' database, log-on to OPT OUT [(Scully's Moulder comment): I should point out that Intelius states that their Opt Out option is only temporary as they are constantly updating their records requiring you to opt out frequently.]

Personal Cell Phone Numbers Are Only a Click Away
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Does Dream Therapy Really Work?

This article was published yesterday, but I wanted to take some time to look into it a little further before I commented on it. Does Dream Therapy work for every person every time? No, but neither does FDA approved medications. Individuals respond as individually to therapy as they do to medication. There are proponents and opponents for Dream Therapy, depending on which theory of psychology/psychiatry you embrace. Here are some abstracts and criticisms about Dream Therapy.

My biggest question, I suppose, I that since research on this has been done for years, why is it just now making waves in the military? The VA published an article about this several years ago calling it Imagery Rehearsal Therapy. The VA’s report is mainly based on studies conducted at the University of New Mexico.

If you’re into study numbers like I am, here’s an in depth look at a 2001 study based solely on women with PTSD.

Dream Therapy also goes under the name of Cognitive Restructuring. Whatever you call it, even if it only has a chance of working, this opportunity should be afforded to everyone suffering from PTSD. While having bad dreams is only 1 of 17 symptoms of PTSD, dealing with the dreams, when present, are shown to positively affect other symptoms as well.

Dream therapy a coping tool for combat stress

Psychologist suggests it’s best to sleep through nightmares
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Aug 9, 2007 17:39:13 EDT

ASAD, Iraq — For 1½ years, Cmdr. Beverly Dexter’s husband gently shook her awake when she screamed in her sleep.

But one night, even as she begged him to wake her up in an unusual case of sleep-talking, he let her continue her nightmare.

She never screamed in her sleep again.

Now the combat psychologist says she may have a key to help those who never sleep through the night because they wake themselves rather than face dreams about the battlefield deaths of their buddies, the disturbing images of Iraqi — or Vietnamese — children handling explosives, or even traumatic scenes from their own childhoods.

“There’s no such thing as a bad dream,” said Dexter, chief of the Combat Stress and Readiness Clinic at Al Asad Air Base. “You’re working through things when you sleep.”
Though Dexter is careful to say she needs to do more research about her theory and that her book, “No More Nightmares,” will not be published until she retires and is able to look at it more closely, she’s excited that veterans have told her their dreams have disappeared within a day of her sleep-therapy lessons, which she teaches here in a classroom-type setting.

Military officials say they want to see more case studies and proof that Dexter’s theory works before commenting on it or recommending it. Dexter is the only therapist who uses her program, which she calls Planned Dream Intervention.

Even Dexter, a fellow of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, said she is not yet sure why the therapy works, though she has ideas. And word has gotten around. Troops recommend it to each other, chaplains have come to her for advice on how to use it and other therapists send their clients to her to try to rid them of never-ending sleepless nights, she said.

“I know this works,” she said. “I know it sounds ridiculously too good to be true, but it is.”

After her husband let her sleep through her nightmare, Dexter said she woke up refreshed and stunned to hear she had even had a bad dream.

As she thought about it, she realized people don’t wake up out of good dreams — no one wakes screaming after winning the lottery. So, when she woke up in a foul mood after an odd dream where the Roman Colosseum — traveling on a pickup truck — began crushing the truck, she wondered how she could make it a happy dream.

“I know,” she said, snapping her fingers and speaking with her whole body as she does when she gets excited. “What if the bricks became hundred-dollar bills?”

That night, she did not wake up. This was significant, she said, for a woman who had suffered nightmares almost nightly since she was 4.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized her solution was more about empowerment — about resolving the bad situation in the dream.

“You have to think, ‘What do I want to happen next?’” she said. “But I don’t know if it’s getting back into the dream and finishing it or the waking resolution that works.”

Soon after Dexter’s peaceful night, clients — as usual — complained of nightmares, and she began asking them to think of scenarios where those dreams could become good. She told them to work only with the point where they woke up — not to rewrite the dream — and think about what’s next. She had them write down the positive outcome, then read it before they went to sleep.

It worked, she said. People began sleeping through the night.

In one case, a woman Dexter said she had helped sleep through dreams of childhood abuse woke up in the middle of such a dream when her alarm clock chimed. In the new dream, however, the woman went into the dream as an adult and saved her younger self from her abuser, Dexter said.

At the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Va., where Dexter works when she’s not deployed, most of her patients deal with combat stress, and she has used the new therapy with them, she said, with good results:

* A soldier suffering combat dreams began sleeping through the night — and stopped spanking his children. Dexter wonders if he resolved his anger issues by finishing the dream.

* A woman had a nightmare that she kicked her boss’s head off. The next day, she thought about him sprouting a new head and apologizing for his bad behavior, and she slept through the night.

* A woman who woke up through 25 years’ worth of sexual-abuse dreams began sleeping through the night.

* A Desert Storm veteran suffering for 10 years with a nightmare about watching civilians die — something he had seen in reality — came up with a new outcome, slept through the night and made peace with the idea that he had done the best he could in that long-ago situation.

* A Marine who dreamed about hurting his daughter at first refused to try Dexter’s therapy because it seemed “flaky.” Out of desperation, he tried it and slept through the night — and stopped being afraid to be near children, she said.

Other troops’ flashbacks have stopped after they began sleeping through the night, she said.

In Iraq, Dexter offers a two-hour group therapy class to teach service members not to wake up during their nightmares.

Eight Marines and soldiers sat in one of her classes recently in the basement of a 399th Combat Support Hospital building. They ranged from a private with recent combat experience to a colonel who had been dreaming since Vietnam. Some seemed into the idea, and others looked skeptical as Dexter explained the process.

She told them their “sleeping brains” say, “I’m not going to let you go there” when a nightmare hits, and that they need to train themselves to sleep through it. In a combat zone, where people remain hypervigilant, that can be tough, but she compared it to “potty training.” Parents teach their children to wake up when they feel bladder pressure.

With her process, people train themselves to think differently about nightmares.
“No one dies in dreams,” she said. “Even if a dream has incredibly shocking pieces to it, I have to trust whatever my sleeping brain is going to do. If you start sleeping peacefully through the night, you wake up more refreshed, and that can make you calmer during the day.”

And, she said, the brain may be using the nightmares to work things out as people sleep.

“Experts say that in dreams, you may forget what we don’t need,” she said. “If you stay asleep, you probably won’t remember your dreams. But we believe the brain biochemistry is doing balance work, and you have to let it.”

She also said it’s important not to interpret dreams. So, if a soldier dreams of killing a friend or sleeping with a loved one’s wife, it means nothing in real life, and allowing it to happen in a dream could work out anger or guilt issues people don’t realize they have.

She also told the service members not to worry about the violence or inappropriateness of the dream intervention they come up with. Early on, her therapy didn’t work with someone who dreamed about two friends he had seen killed in a gruesome way.

“I was shocked,” she said. “I thought, ‘What? The magic fairy dust doesn’t work?’”
She asked him about his intervention.

“He said, ‘I had the insurgent guys lay down their weapons and walk away,’” she said. “‘I’m not doing that violence thing.’”

But that, Dexter said, wasn’t gut-level enough. Still, he said he was a Christian and couldn’t gun the insurgents down, even in a dream. Instead, he had them float away as dust — which worked.

“Abstract is fine,” Dexter said.

But it has to hit at the “caveman” level because dreams are ancient ways to handle stress. In other words, a group hug in dreamland probably won’t do it, but fire-breathing dragons swooping to blast the enemy might.

Sometimes, the dreams make no sense. One client kept having a surgery dream that wasn’t a nightmare, but he also had pain in his leg that no one could find a cause for. But he liked his surgeon, so he didn’t understand the dream.

“Think caveman,” Dexter said she told the man. “On a subconscious level, this man cut you open and hurt you.”

In the dream intervention, the patient beat up his surgeon, and the dreams and the pain went away, Dexter said.

“I’ve had some really odd, remarkable pain that could not be explained disappear with the dream,” she said. “You just have to think, ‘What do I want to happen next?’ It’s like having magic fairy dust.”

Seven steps to planned dream intervention
* There is no such thing as a bad dream.
* Think only about the part of the dream that woke you up.
* Think, “What would I like to happen next?”
* Come up with a quick idea that feels right: Bashing the bad guy, turning spiders into golf balls and whacking them with a club, watching a dead friend enter an elaborate castle in the sky.
* Write it down.
* Read it before you go to sleep.
* If it doesn’t work, come up with another Planned Dream Intervention. The emotional level has to be the same as that of the dream.

Bill Lets Taxpayers Opt Out of War Funding

I have always felt strongly about this. Quite frankly, it sickens me to see how some comgressmen and comgresswomen define "supporting our troops". It's as simple as this. Funding for our troops and the decision of if and when there is a pullout should never be addressed on the same piece of legislative paper.

The very idea of "supporting our troops" by not funding them to force them to come home is insulting to me. Do I want my wife to come home? Absolutely. Do I want her to not get the finding she needs to perform her job? Absolutely not!

I really don't know how to express the outrage I feel that this kind of thing is still being entertained. Work on resolving the issue of bringing them home or don't, but don't stop funding them while they're there.

Bill lets taxpayers opt out of war funding

By Amy Doolittle - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 31, 2007 19:01:32 EDT

A New York congresswoman has renewed an effort to divert money from the military by allowing taxpayers to opt out of funding the war in Iraq when they file their tax returns.

The bill, HR 3190, was introduced late last week and would let taxpayers choose to instead send their money to reduce national debt, finance the Head Start program or fund a college grant program for the children of veterans.

“Our brave service men and women have sacrificed too much already for a war that was ill-conceived and poorly managed,” said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y. “The best way to support them is to bring them home, and if the American people make the choice to stop the funding, we can end this now.”

Unlike a similar bill introduced in June by Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., taxpayers under this legislation would not have to state a reason for their decision and would instead be required to check an opt-out box. While the Lewis bill calls for immediate troop withdrawal and would divert funding from the entire military to a religious peace tax fund, the Velazquez bill would block money only from funding the war and would still allow money to be spent on troop withdrawal and Iraq humanitarian relief.

The Lewis bill, HR 1921, which has 22 co-sponsors and was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, has not been scheduled for a hearing and is not likely to pass. The Velazquez bill, which has 30 co-sponsors, including Lewis, was referred to both the ways and means committee and the House Committee on Labor and Education. It is likely to face a similar fate.

Worst Case Scenario

I have recently posted some articles about security failures as it relates to computers that can't be accounted for and sensitive digital information transmitted in an unsecured way. That's not to mention the laptop computer that was taken home by a Veterans Administration employee and was subsequently stolen compromising some 26.5 million records. And then we bring into play the complete charlie foxtrot that CITIGROUP has made of the processing of US Passports.

What gives?

I mean, we're talking about a complete lapse of security and accountability here. From one aspect, military personnel not only have to be deployed to war zones, but now they have to worry about their own and their family's identities? That's the kind of distraction that could get someone killed. Shame on you, SAIC.

Then there's the retired military personnel, the veterans, who may not have much in the way of economic stability in the first place, who have to worry about the same issue. Veterans information was exposed once, but TWICE this year. Proud men and women serve their country bravely and their repayment is exposure to potential bad guys. Shame on you, VA.

If all that weren't bad enough, US Passports are back-logged in proportions never before seen. It's one thing when your vacation plans are fouled because your US Passport was delayed until the 12th of Never. It's another thing when you finally get your US Passport, but there are errors like a wrong date of birth, incorrect birth location; but, my favorite is it having the wrong picture (I can't make this stuff up). The kicker is when your US passport application gets lost completely. Your photos, application, application fee, and your birth certificate or previous passport are just gone (POOF!). Shame on you, CITIGROUP.

"OK. All that sucks, but why are you birthing a calf over it?"

Aside from identity theft within the country, which has become a past time for some bad guys, what happens if Al-Qaeda gets their grubby little hands on this information or some of the missing passport applications? They've got their computer geeks too, you know.

Digital and domestic terrorism, that's what happens. This goes far beyond the scope of the Red Cross Scam that targeted the spouses of deployed service members. Who knows how that information got leaked.

Please allow me to present a plausible scenario to you.

The bad guys get the information because it is lost, stolen, or otherwise misplaced. They steal the identities of veterans, military personnel and their families and cause complete economic havoc by running up credit cards and transferring savings to off-shore accounts to fund further terrorist activities. Millions of people become poor and destitute while they wait for the government to "solve the problem". What an incredible horror to know that not only have you lost everything, but that what you lost went to finance terrorist activities.

The second wave comes when military families and other citizens start getting threatening phone calls or suspicious letters containing a "strange white powder". Can you imagine the terror that would be instilled? You get a spooky phone call at three in the morning or open a letter you think is junk mail only to have white powder fly all over you and you rush to the Emergency Room. Now that Federal and Local law enforcement have their hands more than full, the next step comes.

The bad guys get the passports applications that were "lost", replace the pictures and reapply using false ID, which isn't that hard to get. And in the cases where the fees were paid with a money order, the poor person whose application was lost in the first place has now paid for a bad guy to gain access to the country. It's an open back door that anyone can walk right through while authorities are tracking down who was responsible for the first two steps.

The insanity of this is that I just thought of it. Me. A simpleton, for all intents and purposes. If I could dream up a nightmare like this, so can the bad guys. Or maybe the can one up me.

The time has come for us as citizens to start demanding the protection we're entitled to and the protection we were promised. Write your Representatives and Senators. Inundate them with letters, e-mails and phone calls. If everyone gets involved and does this, maybe, just maybe, for one day, a committee of some sort, perhaps the entire House or Senate won't be able to conduct business because of concerned and angry correspondence and phone calls. Then they'll step back and really look. "Why can't we do business today?" could turn into "Who's responsible for the lack of security?" and that could lead to action.

This is our time. Do we wait for the bad guys to come to us? I mean, certain government agencies have all but invited them, right? Or do we kick somebody in the pants to motivate them for our own protection? We elected our government officials and we pay their salaries. It's time they started working.

Do the Math: Soldiers' Return Plus 9 Months Equals Base Baby Boom

Now this is the kind of article I enjoy reading, except for the whole re-deploying bit. It is interesting to me to see the trend or the pattern between soldiers' returns and the ensuing fruits of romantic entanglement that follow. I would have to look for more data on this issue, but I do not believe that this is only a recent occurrence. I have a neighbor that lives just up the street from me. They have two little boys and he's been deployed right before each was conceived. (ponders)

Do the Math: Soldiers' Return Plus 9 Months Equals Base Baby Boom

By KRISTIN M. HALL
Associated Press Writer
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky.

Army Spc. John Luckey and his wife, Kerry, already had five children and no plans for more when he came home from a year's duty in Iraq. But there was romance in the California air when the entire family went on a vacation to see the giant redwoods.

Nine months later, Kerry Luckey gave birth to a daughter, EmLee Rae.

Apparently many military couples at Fort Campbell celebrated like the Luckeys when about 20,000 soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division came home last fall, because the military hospital here is now seeing a baby boom.

The hospital...


...expects to deliver 210 babies a month soon, nearly twice the usual number of deliveries, and more are expected at other nearby hospitals in Tennessee and Kentucky.

"You go around town and there are these big bellies everywhere. It's kind of fun to have all the babies around," said Kerry Luckey, who lives in Clarksville, near this Army post.

A temporary increase in births is not uncommon after soldiers return, but the boom this year is the biggest the post has seen in decades, said Lt. Col. Diane Adams, chief of women's health at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital.

The base is seeing "a lot more folks with family on the mind when they returnedthis time around," Adams said.

About 19,000 soldiers returned to Fort Stewart, Ga., in the first months of 2006, and the hospital there saw a baby boom nine months later, delivering more than 100 babies a month, compared with 76 per month the previous year. Fort Hood in Texas saw deliveries peak at 289 in March 2006, well above the 213 average.

Lt. Trena Buggs, a labor and delivery nurse at Blanchfield, got pregnant herself not long after her husband, a Special Forces soldier, returned from Iraq in early 2006, and she gave birth in May. She knew what to expect when the 101st Airborne came back between August and December of last year.

"We knewthat any time the soldiers are deployed, we knew the one thing they liked to do best when they come home is get a little bit of loving," she said.

In many cases, the father was back in Iraq by the time the baby arrived; many soldiers have heard their children's first cries via cell phone.

In the Fort Campbell hospital's busy maternity waiting room, many new mothers do not even seem to notice when Brahms' lullaby starts playing over the public address system _ the signal that another baby has just been born.

Adams hears the lullaby about seven times a day.

"We should be close to 2,300 for the year," she said. "Last year we delivered1,352, to give you a comparison."

The baby boom at Fort Campbell is expected to continue through December, which also happens to be when three units from the 101st Airborne are set to return to Iraq. Another three units are scheduled to leave for Afghanistan early next year.

About 20 percent of the new mothers at Fort Campbell are active-duty soldiers themselves, Adams said.

New mothers are exempt from deployment for four months. But after that, husband-and-wife soldiers have to arrange for child care if they are both sent overseas. Often, relatives or close friends take care of the children.

Many soldiers at Fort Campbell have beensent to Iraq three times already. Back-to-back tours can play havoc with family planning.

"When you're in your first deployment, if you haven't started your family already, you think, `Well, we'll go ahead and do that after the first one,'" Adams said. "They've put it off long enough, and now they want to get going on getting the family situation straightened out."

Copyright 2007 by the Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

More Military Medical Records Exposed

Not just military, but dependant too. I hope none of you all are caught up in this.

Data security lapse affects almost 900,000
By William H. McMichael - Staff writerPosted : Friday Jul 20, 2007 15:38:36 EDT

The coded personal health care records of nearly 900,000 troops, family members and other government employees stored on a private defense contractor’s nonsecure computer server were exposed to compromise, the company announced Friday.

SAIC said the information, maintained under several health care contracts with the government, included combinations of names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates and/or “limited health information in the form of codes.” It was stored on a single, SAIC-owned, nonsecure server in Shalimar, Fla., and was in some cases transmitted over the Internet in an unencrypted form. The information was exposed while being processed, the company said.

SAIC said a forensic analysis by top computer security experts “has not yielded any information that any personal information was actually compromised,” but added that “the possibility cannot be ruled out.”

Although SAIC announced the data breach Friday, the company acknowledged it has known about the problem since May 29, when U.S. Air Forces Europe notified SAIC that it had “detected an unsecure transmission of this personal information,” said SAIC spokeswoman Connie Custer.

However, SAIC had concerns about a potential problem even earlier. Two weeks before USAFE contacted the contractor, SAIC shut down the server “based on general concerns regarding the security of transmissions,” SAIC spokeswoman Melissa Koskovich said. SAIC confirmed that personal information had in fact been transmitted in an unsecure manner and stored on an unsecured computer.

Koskovich said the server has been shut down ever since. Neither she nor Custer knew the length of time over which the security lapse occurred, or when the company first began storing data at the site. “We’re working that now,” Custer said.

Storage of the data on an unsecure server is a violation of both SAIC and Defense Department policy, Custer said. Asked why an unsecure server was used to store the data, she said, “We’re trying to find that out. We’re doing an investigation.”

The Pentagon immediately expressed concern.
“We take this very seriously, and we’re taking all the steps necessary to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia Smith, who also confirmed the department’s requirement for secure storage of the data.

But Smith downplayed this particular instance, saying “the risk for compromise is low” and that “there’s been no evidence of compromise.”

SAIC Executive Vice President Arnold Punaro said the nearly two-month delay in announcing the problem was unavoidable.
“We regret that it took a little bit longer than we would have liked,” he said, but added the time was needed to make an “accurate assessment” of the extent of the problem.
“Our task force has been working literally around the clock,” he said. “It was a massive amount of data.”

Experts initially had to accurately assess exactly what data was on the server. Some, Punaro said, was no more than a piece of an individual’s record, such as an isolated medical appointment file. As such, all records had to be matched against government Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System, or DEERS, records, to determine how, with government permission, to contact individuals, he said.

FBI, Secret Service and other top computer experts were brought in to help analyze the problem, Punaro said.

SAIC said it is notifying about 867,000 individual records were involved. That includes 173,939 soldiers; 151,315 airmen; 96,925 sailors; 26,171 Marines; 10,415 Coast Guardsmen; 2,164 members of the U.S. Public Health Service; and 104 members of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The remaining 406,000 are family members of those personnel.

The company has taken full responsibility for the lapse.
“We deeply regret this security failure, and I want to extend our apologies to those affected by it,” said chairman and chief executive officer Ken Dahlberg. “We are concerned about the inconvenience and risk of potential compromise of personal information this may cause. The security failure is completely unacceptable and occurred as a result of clear violations of SAIC’s strong internal IT security policies. We let down our customers and the service members whom we support. For this, we are very sorry.”

SAIC said the company is working with the affected agencies to “mitigate any potential inconvenience or harm” the security lapse may have caused. It has retained Kroll Inc. to help out those whose records were exposed affected. Kroll will operate an Incident Response Center with extended hours, information resources and credit and identity restoration services for any victims of related identity theft.

Those potentially affected will be provided the contact information by mail, Punaro said. All assistance will be provided at no cost to the government or affected persons.
The company’s internal investigation is being conducted using outside counsel to determine how the security lapse occurred. It also has placed “a number” of employees on administrative leave pending the investigation’s outcome, it said.

For more information, go to http://www.saic.com/response.

Considering Going To School While Your Spouse Is Deployed?

One of the biggest things the spouse of a deployed service member has to consider is what to do with his or her time while their loved one is deployed. Certainly, having nothing to do with your time will make the deployment seem longer. If you're working or chasing kiddos around, you've got your hands full for sure.

Maintaining a house, a family, finances, cars... all of this seems like it would take a considerable amount of time. But what if you find yourself in a situation where you have the time and nothing to do? Have you considered continuing your education? Thinking about picking up a few college hours? Are your children old enough to take college courses?

Almost every state offers in-state tuition prices for military members and their families. That makes for incredible cost savings. Then consider the specific military scholarship programs available to service members and their families. I'll list a few here and also put them on my side-bar for easier access.

First, you have to choose a school. Internet or on campus, it all depends on your personal preferences and the time and resources you have to spend on it.

Then you have to complete the appropriate year Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). This can usually be accomplished online, unless you just like the old pencil and paper version better. Usually, when the FAFSA gets submitted to the school/schools you have chosen, the schools will apply on your behalf for State funded financial aid, such as grants, lottery money, etc.

"The Military Scholarships For Children Programwas created to recognize the contributions of military families to the readiness of the fighting force and to celebrate the role of the commissary in the military family community."

The National Military Family Association's Joanne Holbrook Patton Military Spouse Scholarship Program awards scholarships to "spouses of Uniformed Services members (active duty, National Guard and Reserve, retirees, and survivors) to obtain professional certification or to attend post secondary or graduate school."

The purpose of the Armed Forces Children's Education Fund is to be able to financially assist the educational needs of the surviving children of the U.S. Military men and women who lost their lives on or after October 7, 2001, the commencement of Afghanistan operations, as part of the global war on terrorism defined as "Operation Enduring Freedom".

America Supports You links to several service specific scholarship programs for children and spouses as well.

Additionally, FastWeb is an awesome resource for nation wide scholarships and it's search utilities can be customized to suit your individual qualifications for scholarships; i.e. field of study, local area scholarships, internships, minority scholarships, etc.

So, why not rack up a few college credits? It's a great way to occupy your/your children's time and it's likely to cost little or nothing. Good luck!

For Military Families with Pre-K Aged Kids

I came across this and thought it would be something some folks might to keep an eye on. Good luck. :)

Report: All military kids need pre-K programs

By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jul 11, 2007 17:28:47 EDT

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — All states should make all military children eligible for state-funded pre-kindergarten programs, according to two advocacy organizations for pre-K education and for military children.

Eligibility requirements vary among the 39 states that have state-funded pre-K programs. As states expand their programs, some base eligibility on income. But regardless of eligibility requirements, military families should have access, said Libby Doggett, executive director of Pre-K Now, a public education and advocacy organization based in Washington.

Many military families are middle-income, she said, and “middle-income families are very much left behind in this country.”

Pre-K Now and the Military Child Education Coalition issued a joint report July 11 at the coalition’s annual conference here, titled “Pre-K for Military Families: Honoring Service, Educating Children.”

Doggett said research has shown that all 3- and 4-year-olds benefit from high-quality pre-kindergarten education.

Several states, including Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma, provide pre-K education for all 4-year-olds. The Texas legislature passed a law in 2006 making military children eligible for the state’s pre-K program. That includes children of National Guard and Reserve members who have been activated, said Mary Keller, executive director of the Military Child Education Coalition. Their children would remain eligible when the service member returns from deployment.

The Kansas legislature in 2006 approved a test program that includes serving military children in six counties, including Geary County, near Fort Riley.

A pre-K education could give military children a foundation to help them adapt later in the educational process, Doggett said.

“Military families have more stress. They may move from a state with lower education standards to a state with high standards. If the child has a strong start, they have more chance of catching up,” she said. “This is learning that lasts a lifetime.”

Pre-K education can be expensive for parents in the private sector, but it varies from one location to another. A family in Texas, for example, could pay more than $8,000 a year for pre-K.

In 2006, Texas was home to 5,395 3- and 4-year-old military children, half of whom did not meet the previous requirements for the state pre-K program. If all eligible military children had participated in the program, it would have cost the state about $7 million, Keller said.

She estimated about 500,000 military children worldwide might be in the pre-K age range, although it is difficult to pinpoint how many military children would be eligible for pre-K because of the fluid nature of the population and the number of Guard and Reserve families with children that age.

She said states can work with military child development centers so that children can go to pre-K for half a day, then roll over to the child development center staff.

Doggett said the pre-K programs are growing not only in schools, but in conjunction with child care centers.

“The military child care program is the premiere child care program in this country, but it’s is still not pre-K and is not tied to pre-K standards,” she said. “There are also a number of military families who don’t have access to military child care.”

Saving Money and Pinching Pennies in the Military

It's that time of year again. Thinking about putting the kiddos back into school... dreading fighting with other parents to get through crowded isles and picking through the left over school supplies at whatever store you choose to shop at. Here's some helpful advice:

1. Get Organized. Don't wait until you get to the Wal-Mart to look for the school supplies list on the rack. Go online to your school's website and download it. If you've got more than one kiddo, download them all. Print them off and compare them, then make a master list. (One list is easier to keep track of than three) Chances are, your kiddos are going to need some of the same things. If your kiddos have color preferences for stuff, jot that down too.

2. Shop Smart. Get a Sunday Paper with all the advertisements in it. Pull out the ones from places like Walgreen's, CVS, Wal-Mart, OfficeMax, Office Depot, etc. Compare the advertisements to your master list and put check next to the items you find in the ads with a little note beside the item saying what ad you found it in. Keep all your ads and your list together. Take a pocket calculator with you "just in case".

3. GO ALONE. If you don't HAVE to take the kids to the store with you, don't. Get a sitter, get a spouse, a relative, something to watch the kiddos for you. Remember last year when you took the kids with you? How much hair did you pull out of your head? How many margaritas did you drink after you put the kids to bed? All the "OH, mommy look!" and "Ooh, I want..." and "Aw, can't I have..." will distract you, wear you out, and slow you down.

4. Shop Early. Don't wait for the "Tax Free" weekend. Everybody and their grandmother's dog is going to be shopping that weekend. Besides, at your PX/BX, you don't pay sales tax anyway.

5. Go Shopping. Usually, you can get 90-95% of everything you need at the PX/BX. Take all your fliers, your list, and your method of payment to the PX/BX. Get an AAFES flier on your way in and glance through it. It's not unheard of for sales items prices to be in the flier and not in the computers. Grab a cart and start checking off items as you throw them in.

6. Check Out. Here's where your fliers come in handy. I'll almost guarantee that the prices in the other stores fliers are going to be less expensive than the shelf price. The PX/BX will price match ANY advertised price for the same item. AND there's no sales tax. AND you didn't wait to fight the hoarding mobs. AND if you're lucky, the kiddos are watching cartoons or something under the supervision of another responsible person who owes you a favor. ;)

That's just for the supplies. Of course, you're going to have to take the kiddos with you when you buy their school clothes. I do my school shopping in two trips. One by myself for supplies and one with the kids for their clothes. Limits the amount of stress on everyone involved. ;)

One thing I did not mention above (intentionally) was coupons. But now, I'm going to address that as well.

If you have a Star Card and you want to use it, DEFINITELY find that coupon in the AAFES flier that says "$10, $20, or $30 off your purchase when using your Star Card". And while you probably won't find coupons for pens, paper, folders, or glue, you can certainly find coupons for other products like hand sanitizer and facial tissue. And don't forget about the "$1.00 of any Exchange Select Item" coupons.

The Coupon Master

This website performs a "coupon collection" service. Basically, they collect and cut whatever coupons are available and many times get shipments directly from the manufacturers. There is a very minimal charge for their services and it is more than made up for in the savings. The first time I visited this site, I spent roughly $6 and change and saved almost $90 at the commissary!

I'm not ashamed of saving money. In fact, I rather enjoy it. I usually check this site every couple of weeks for new updates. Most of the time there is no limit to the number of coupons of a certain product you can order. (Unless it a really hot product) I already save between 30-40% just by shopping at the commissary. And when I coupon, depending on what I buy, I save another 22-28% off of that.

Granted, I have some pantry space available for me to use as well as a chest freezer. I tend to buy in bulk when something is already on sale and coupon it down.

Sometimes, though, the commissary's prices aren't the best. So the grocery store ads that you didn't look at when making your school supply list are going to be your friends now. Don't make special trips to out of the way grocery stores. If you're already running an errand and pass by a store that you know has a sale, stop in there, get the sale items, present your coupons and go on home. I keep a notebook with my coupons, a calculator, and the weekly fliers in the car "just in case".

Here's some grocery store shopping tips:

1. Get Organized. Don't wait until you get to the commissary/grocery store to decide what you're having for dinner for the week. Plan out a menu. Take suggestions from family members. Create a shopping list based on that menu and add other necessities. (bath tissue, laundry detergent, etc.) It takes me about 20-30 minutes per week to make a list and sort my coupons.

2. Don't Shop Hungry. This leads to impulse buying and you end up with more in your cart than you planned on. The commissary usually isn't like this, but other grocery stores are. That DANGED BAKERY right in the front of the store. You walk in, smell warm fresh bread and impulsively buy more.

3. Shop Smart. Check the sales fliers for the grocery stores that come out of the Sunday Paper. Look at those coupons too. On your shopping list, put a check next to the items that you have coupons for and pull those out. But go ahead and take your entire coupon book into the store in case you find an unadvertised sale as well.

4. GO ALONE. Same reasons as above plus a few others. Candy aisle. Cereal aisle. Ice cream aisle. Plus, kiddos are ALWAYS hungry.

5. Go Shopping. Take your calculator. Look at the unit price, not the items price (per ounce vs per box). The best deals aren't always in the larger packages. Look up and look down. Usually, the most expensive items in a category (pasta sauce for example) are at eye level. Less expensive items will be above or below that. There are certain things that my wife and I absolutely insist on having name brand stuff for. Other stuff, we don't care.

6. Now, you've taken your calculator for this very reason. When you apply a coupon to the shelf price of an item, it will change the unit price. Enter the shelf price, subtract the amount of the coupon, then divide by the number of units in the item. There's your new unit price. At this point, the larger item may now become the better value for your dollar.

7. This is very important. Just because you have a coupon doesn't mean you have to buy the item. Don't clip coupons you won't use. You can take the extra coupons you're not going to use and leave them at the front of the store if you like. Other shoppers will pick through them and take what they want.

Good luck and have fun shopping and saving money!

The Coupon Master

Being a Deployed Military Wife

OK. So I'm not a wife. I'm a husband. But I assure you, the worries are the same, the responsibilities are the same, the stress is the same. I'm a full time student as well as a full time single parent of 3 great kids. But biggest and foremost, I'm a full time deployed spouse.

All of our dynamics (deployed spouses and families) are different, but our needs are basically the same. We want to be able to communicate with our spouse that is deployed, however it is possible. If we have kids, we want our spouse to be able to communicate with them also. We knew what we asked for when we signed up, but we're not afraid to take help when it's offered.

Your first stop, if you haven't already, is to go to the Family Readiness Center at your local base. They'll have a list of programs and benefits that you can utilize.

After that, go here. http://www.iraqwarveterans.org/free_for_troops.htm and see what all you can do for your family and for your deployed Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine.

Additionally, many states have extra benefits for families of deployed service members. Check your local state governments web page for details.

If you'd like to help out my family or my deployed spouse, e-mail me at drexxell@hotmail.com and I will send you the information you need. Put "I want to help" in the subject line. These same services can be applied to any deployed service member or their family as long as you know their address.

Also, don't forget to look into Service Members Civil Relief Act (SCRA)(Formerly Soldiers and Sailors Act). This is especially use full for guard and reserve members who have been activated as it relates to their debts incurred prior to being called to active duty (Credit cards, car loans, mortgage loans). Many times, credit card companies will follow the directions of the SCRA for active duty members who have been deployed. Call your credit card company and ask.

As for cell phones, check this out http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/06/military_cellphone_cancelcontracts_070628w/.
This was just passed in June of 2007. Deployed members can have their cell phone accounts put on "Military Suspense" for the duration of their deployment. That means no monthly service charges on their phones (which they can't use because they have no coverage). It doesn't effect phones you're still using at home. Basically, call your cell phone provider and see what they require to make this happen.

My many thanks go out to the organizations that donate their time, money, and effort to supporting our deployed troops and their families.

Special thanks and praise goes out to the deployed Service Members themselves and the families they've left behind. God's safety to you all and God's speed home.

If there's anything I can do for your family or for your deployed member, please let me know.

For spouses and their deployed members, just remember this "It's not worth getting into a pissing contest on who's got it worse." The situation sucks from both sides, but for different reasons. Remember that you love each other. Remember that you love your family. Remember that war has bad effects on people and don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it.

http://www.militaryonesource.com/skins/MOS/home.aspx will give you a lot of tips on how to cope. Additionally, they'll give you 8 sessions of personal or family counseling, no questions asked, all billed to TriCare.

Find the support groups. Get involved in your spouses group at your base. If one isn't active, make noise and help create one. Best of luck to you all.