The ranking member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee on Monday said that recent comments by a mid-level Veterans Affairs Department official are a sign of a management culture that still fails to take data security seriously enough. GovExec.com reports that Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., publicized a recording of the comments made at a meeting in early January in response to the VA's latest data breach. Joseph Francis, the acting deputy chief research and development at VA, telling told his staff members that they did not need to "do an A-plus job" in responding to a congressional request for information on where the department keeps sensitive data. "If you want to know what's the real purpose of the data call, read Machiavelli. It's about power; it's about Congress saying, 'VA, you're accountable to us,'" Francis said. "We're not asking people to do an A-plus job on this report."