I would say, no; whoever actually stole the files wouldn't want the data. But, usually these kinds of criminals know other criminals. My biggest worry is that whoever stole the files will discover exactly what it is that he has and find another person willing to pay alot of money for all that information.
I saw in the article that the POS beaurucrat who took the files home has been placed on leave. This is unacceptable. He needs to be arrested and charged with compromising highly classified material. Instead, he has been given a vacation.
At least this made the news ..........
bump
I'm sure that's the case.
Has anyone here watched the show on the Discovery channel called, "It Takes a Thief"? One of the things I've learned watching that show is that a thief isn't very discriminate about what he steals, while burglarizing a home. If something looks remotely valuable, or potentially valuable, the thief would take it, to sort out later.
In this instance, it's entirely possible, as you suggest, that the thief knew others who are in the "information business", and thus thought whatever's on the disk might be valuable. It's also possible that the thief may have thought the disks contained simple backups of the employee's personal data, and thus could possibly contain his CC#'s, checking account #'s, etc.
In other words this isn't some grand conspiracy. It's probably a couple of crack addicts looking for a quick score. And maybe an identity theft ring might come down in the process of investigation too.
As far as the employee goes, he should be fired IMO. The VA system takes these kind of things very seriously. As far as bringing him up on charges of compromising classified material, I wouldn't say that. After all, everyone's SS# and other personal information isn't classified to begin with. It should be kept private, by the person themselves and anyone s/he chooses to give the information to, but privacy rules and laws aren't the same as classified information.