doge – Page 3

DOGE can’t use student loan data to dismantle the Education Dept., lawsuit says

data privacy, department of education, doge, Donald Trump, elon musk, financial data, Online Privacy, Policy, student loans / DJ Henderson / February 8, 2025

Microsoft declined to comment, but allegedly the DOGE employees are “using AI software accessed through Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure to pore over every dollar of money the department disburses, from contracts to grants to work trip expenses,” one source told the Post.

The lawsuit noted that several DOE employees have tried to block DOGE’s access by raising red flags up the command chain, but DOE leadership directly instructed lower-level employees to grant DOGE access, the same source alleged.

A big concern is that DOGE funneling education data into AI systems will cause sensitive data to be stored in a way that makes it more vulnerable to cyberattacks or data breaches. Another issue could be the AI system being error-prone or potentially hallucinating data that is driving decisions on major DOE cuts.

On Thursday, a DOE deputy assistant secretary for communications, Madi Biedermann, issued a statement insisting that DOGE employees are federal employees who have undergone background checks to be granted requisite security clearances.

“There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on,” Biedermann said.

Trump has similarly waved away concerns over DOGE’s work at DOE and other departments that officials worry are experiencing a “blitz” of seemingly unlawful power grabs, the Post reported. On Monday, Trump told reporters that “if there’s a conflict” with DOGE accessing Americans’ data, “then we won’t let him get near it.” But seemingly until Trump agrees there’s a conflict, Musk’s work with DOGE must go on, Trump said.

“We’re trying to shrink government, and he can probably shrink it as well as anybody else, if not better,” Trump suggested.

While thousands of Americans are suing, confused over whether they need to urgently protect their private financial data, one DOE staffer told the Post that DOGE “is working with almost unbelievable speed.” The staffer ominously suggested that it may already be too late to protect Americans from invasive probes or defend departments against cuts.

“They have a playbook, which is to get access to the data,” the staffer told the Post. “And once they’re in, it’s already over.”

DOGE can’t use student loan data to dismantle the Education Dept., lawsuit says Read More »

DOJ agrees to temporarily block DOGE from Treasury records

department of government efficiency, department of justice, doge, elon musk, Policy, Treasury Department / Beth Washington / February 6, 2025

Elez reports to Tom Krause, another Treasury Department special government employee, but Krause doesn’t have direct access to the payment system, Humphreys told the judge. Krause is the CEO of Cloud Software Group and is also viewed as a Musk ally.

But when the judge pressed Humphreys on Musk’s alleged access, the DOJ lawyer only said that as far as the defense team was aware, Musk did not have access.

Further, Humphreys explained that DOGE—which functions as part of the executive office—does not have access, to the DOJ’s knowledge. As he explained it, DOGE sets the high-level priorities that these special government employees carry out, seemingly trusting the employees to identify waste and protect taxpayer dollars without ever providing any detailed reporting on the records that supposedly are evidence of mismanagement.

To Kollar-Kotelly, the facts on the record seem to suggest that no one outside the Treasury is currently accessing sensitive data. But when she pressed Humphreys on whether DOGE had future plans to access the data, Humphreys declined to comment, calling it irrelevant to the complaint.

Humphreys suggested that the government’s defense in this case would focus on the complaint that outsiders are currently accessing Treasury data, seemingly dismissing any need to discuss DOGE’s future plans. But the judge pushed back, telling Humphreys she was not trying to “nail” him “to the wall,” but there’s too little information on the relationship between DOGE and the Treasury Department as it stands. How these entities work together makes a difference, the judge suggested, in terms of safeguarding sensitive Treasury data.

According to Kollar-Kotelly, granting a temporary restraining order in part would allow DOGE to “preserve the status quo” of its current work in the Treasury Department while ensuring no new outsiders get access to Americans’ sensitive information. Such an order would give both sides time to better understand the current government workflows to best argue their cases, the judge suggested.

If the order is approved, it would remain in effect until the judge rules on plantiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction. At the hearing today, Kollar-Kotelly suggested that matter would likely be settled at a hearing on February 24.

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Trump says Elon Musk will lead “DOGE,” a new Department of Government Efficiency

department of government efficiency, doge, Donald Trump, elon musk, Policy / Kelly Newman / November 13, 2024

Trump’s “perfect gift to America”

Trump’s statement said the department, whose name is a reference to the Doge meme, “will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending.” Trump said DOGE will “liberate our Economy” and that its “work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026” because “a smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence.”

“I look forward to Elon and Vivek making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans,” Trump said. Today, Musk wrote that the “world is suffering slow strangulation by overregulation,” and that “we finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good.”

Musk has been expected to have influence in Trump’s second term after campaigning for him. Trump previously vowed to have Musk head a government efficiency commission. “That would essentially give the world’s richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest,” said a New York Times article last month.

The Wall Street Journal wrote today that “Musk isn’t expected to become an official government employee, meaning he likely wouldn’t be required to divest from his business empire.”

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