[apostate]

Since the IRS has custody of other people's sensitive data, they should be held to a different standard than the carefree homeowner in your example.

If I pay my bank for a safe deposit box, good security is part of what I am paying for. If it can be shown that they were lax/careless/negligent in the event of a theft, then I certainly would lay blame with both the bank and the thief for loss of my assets.

This is even more the case for a government with vast resources.