The TSA has lost managed to
lose a hard drive containing the personal information of 100,000 employees. What's sad is that on its own, the story's not particularly newsworthy, given the TSA's
previous losses as well as the Federal government's
abysmal track record in the area. But it's worth noting how the TSA disclosed the breach: by issuing a press release
at 7pm Eastern time on a Friday. Such releases used to be favored by companies trying to bury bad news, as it would generally get lost in the shuffle over the weekend, when fewer people -- both in the media and in their audience -- were paying attention. However, as the TSA
has found out, efforts like this to try and control the news cycle don't really work any more. Of course, it's a stretch to think all these stories will actually help change the situation, since the TSA's director has made the standard offer to pay for a year of credit monitoring for the employees whose data was lost, and that's apparently all it takes to make everything okay.