Pat A. Strong …

Pat A. Strong                                                                                   Robert J. Bruno
  Chair                                                                                    Richard E. D'Aquin
                                                                                            Maurice C. Durbin
Scott O. Brame                                                                                  Donna G. Klein
  Vice Chair                                                                                     Ingrid T. Labat
                                                                                                 Robert W. Levy
Artis L. Terrell, Jr.                                                                   W. Clinton Rasberry, Jr.
   Secretary                                                                                    Mary Ellen Roy
                                                                                        William Clifford Smith
E. Joseph Savoie                                                                                 Victor T. Stelly
   Commissioner of                                                                            Harold M. Stokes
   Higher Education                   BOARD OF REGENTS                                        Roland M. Toups
                                              P. O. Box 3677                            James L. Klock, Student
                                       Baton Rouge, LA 70821-3677
                                 Phone (225) 342-4253, FAX (225) 342-9318
                                          www.regents.state.la.us

                                             July 27, 2007



Mr. Aaron Titus
Liberty Coalition
Information Privacy Program Director
1920 L. Street, Suite 200, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

Dear Mr. Titus:

         I have received your letter dated July 16, 2007. While we appreciate your efforts to
assist those who may have been affected, we are concerned that your current activities may harm
those you seek to protect.

        You indicate that you have set up a website to assist those who may have been included
in the documents you accessed. This is problematic in that it is clear that you have retained and
are further exposing personal information to the general public.

        It is my understanding from those who have accessed your website that a visitor is able to
put in initials or partial names in the search box and that several names, not just their own, would
appear. The site then informs the visitor of not only the names of affected individuals but also
the type of information about these individuals that may be exposed.

        The Board of Regents appreciates that your work eventually led to our becoming aware
of the potential exposure of confidential information and we understand our obligation to remedy
the situation. To that end, within one hour of notification, the Board of Regents shut down all
access to the files and reported the breach to the Louisiana Attorney General's office and the
state's Chief Information Officer, both of which are continuing to investigate the breach. The
Board has also been able to eliminate cached versions of these files that may have existed on
major internet search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, etc.). In addition, we have
contracted with Verma Systems, Inc., a network solutions company, to improve the security of
BoR data and systems and with the Identify Theft Resource Center, a nationally respected non-
profit organization specializing in the prevention of identify theft, to assist us with exposure




                        The Board of Regents is an Equal Opportunity and ADA Employer
Mr. Aaron Titus
Page 2


notification and to provide professional advisory services free of charge (not at "negotiated
discount" rates) to individuals who may have been negatively affected by this data security
breach. The Board of Regents has also established a call center and website to respond to
questions and provide additional information regarding this issue.

        Hopefully you will understand our sincere and thorough efforts to both correct any
deficiencies in our system and mitigate any potential harm. I am certain that you can appreciate
our concern that non-coordinated, non-affiliated and unauthorized strategies could damage the
effectiveness of these efforts and potentially cause unnecessary harm to those affected.

       Therefore, on behalf of the Board of Regents, the owner of the confidential information
you accessed and continue to possess, I request that you take down your website immediately.
Further, we request that you destroy any confidential information that you obtained including the
names and personal information of all individuals affected.

                                                  Sincerely,




                                                  E. Joseph Savoie
                                                  Commissioner of Higher Education

EJS:chb

C:     Rizwan Ahmed
       Chief Information Officer

       Isabell Wingerter
       Assistant Attorney General

       Jay and Linda Foley
       Identity Theft Resources Center

       Mitch Verma
       Verma Systems, Inc.




                        The Board of Regents is an Equal Opportunity and ADA Employer