Report says IRS computers are vulnerable to identity theft

Because you really do need another reason to hate taxes and hate the IRS: A report from the office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration warns that taxpayer date stored with the IRS could be vulnerable to a disgruntled employee or even an outside hacker. A hacker could "gain full control of the IRS network," according to the report.

Holy schnikes!

So here's my question: if there were a massive data breach at the IRS and someone was able to "gain full control of the IRS network" and steal the identity of pretty much everyone (except survivalist freaks who live in log cabins and don't pay taxes), what would happen?

It's not too outside the realm of possibility either. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently apologized to all three major presidential candidates after it was discovered that IRS workers had snooped into their tax records. It looks like we have a serious privacy problem over at the IRS -- and they don't exactly need to to give people more reasons to hate them.