Just as TJ Maxx learns about a bunch of lawsuits over the loss of an unspecified number of customer records, the hits keep coming. You might recall that a few months ago TJX Companies, owner of the TJ Maxx and Marshalls stores, admitted that hackers had access to customer data undetected from May 2006 to December 2006.

More than 30 banks have since reported that cards they issued had been compromised as a result of the theft, and now the Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has announced that she will head an investigation by dozens of states into the security breach.

The same day the announcement was made, Johns Hopkins University announced that computer backup tapes containing payroll data on 52,000 employees as well as the medical information of 83,000 patients, had gone missing.

And to top it all, the Department of Veterans Affairs admitted that it is investigating the disappearance of a hard drive containing the personal records of 48,000 military veterans. You might recall the same agency announced the theft of an employee laptop in May 2006 containing information on more than 26 million veterans, and despite promises to ensure that all such vulnerable data would be encrypted to make it useless to thieves, it seems that these records were once again not encrypted.

This all happens at a time when a growing number of data protection and breach disclosure laws are once again being pushed through a new Congress. We need these laws, but we need laws with sharp teeth and without the opt-out loopholes that some representatives are proposing.

Keep pressuring your local representatives to push for data protection legislation that protects the consumer and potential id theft victim as much as it protects our personal data.