Former congressional candidate Paul Hackett sued the U.S. government Tuesday on behalf of the 26.5 million veterans whose personal information was stolen this month.

Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and Indian Hill lawyer, accuses the Department of Veterans Affairs of failing to safeguard crucial personal data, including Social Security numbers.

The federal lawsuit asks a court to order Veterans Affairs to pay damages of about $1,000 per veteran and to cover the cost of credit monitoring services.

"Why should all these people have to live in fear?" said Chris Jenkins, one of the Cincinnati lawyers who filed the suit on behalf of Hackett and the other veterans.

"We're not looking for big emotional distress damages," he said. "We're looking for these people to be made whole."

Veterans Affairs officials announced May 22 that thieves had stolen material from a VA employee's home, including sensitive personal information such as birth dates and Social Security numbers.

The information was on a laptop stolen from a mid-level data analyst, who had taken the material home to suburban Maryland.

VA officials said there was no evidence the thieves had used the data for identity theft and that they might not know what kind of information they have. A federal investigation is continuing.

Jenkins said the government can't afford to wait for the thieves to use the data for illegal purposes. "If they didn't know what they had before, you'd better believe they know now," Jenkins said.

He said the government could pay credit monitoring services a relatively small amount, possibly less than $10 per veteran, to monitor the credit of the 26.5 million veterans affected by the theft.

Hackett, who could not be reached, is a Democrat who narrowly lost a race last year in the 2nd Congressional District. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Covington.

E-mail dhorn@enquirer.com