However predisposed I might be to agree with these remarks from James Taranto:
One might argue that the federal government has become so big and complex that there is no way the president or members of Congress could have known precisely what OPM spending was essential and would result in catastrophe if cut. One would thereby issue a more powerful rejoinder to Krugman: Big government is antithetical to effective government, for the bigger the government, the harder it is for anyone to manage effectively.
in reference to the massive, damaging, unforgiveable and avoidable security breach at the Office of Personnel Management, I think his kneejerk reaction only carries you so far as well. There are some things that cannot be done securely.
Why were the data in question retained in digital form at all? Why were they retained for so long? The data in question should never have been digitized in the first place but they also should not be retained indefinitely.
For a long time, I have thought that outsourcing everything is a bad idea. You lose too much control. If you need to hire outside contractors, you bring them onsite after they have been properly vetted.
Information that needs to remain secure should be on secure networks, and secure networks should have no physical connection to insecure networks. If information needs to be passed between the two, it needs to be a manual process. The user can have two physical machines or a virtual machine(s). I would use a protocol other than TCP/IP on my secure network.
In my opinion, you can never be too paranoid when it comes to security, but that is just me being paranoid.