Contact:
Tim Kauffman
202-639-6405/202-374-6491
[email protected]
WASHINGTON – The American Federation of Government Employees today issued the following statement:
“The resignation of OPM Director Katherine Archuleta is not a solution to the damage that has been done to more than 20 million Americans as a result of the massive cybersecurity breaches into OPM’s data systems.
“While the data breaches happened on Archuleta’s watch, the lapses that gave hackers access into the systems were the result of decisions made long before Archuleta became director. Firing one individual solves nothing. Congress should recognize that preventing future breaches requires funding. Budget austerity has consequences, and we’re seeing one of them right now.
“Yes, OPM could and should have done a better job of cybersecurity with the resources they had. But going forward, we hope one lesson learned from these breaches is that when you refuse to fund the operations of government, you will have hugely consequential failures.
“Agency heads are not magicians. They cannot always do more with less. The OPM data breach is evidence of that.”
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