Also relevant: The DOGE team set up a Starlink satellite at the White House [1].
DOGE staff installed the terminal on the Eisenhower Executive Office Building roof in February 2025 without notifying White House communications or cybersecurity teams, ignoring their prior warnings [2]. The resulting "Starlink Guest" Wi-Fi used only a password—no usernames or two-factor authentication—unlike standard networks requiring full VPN tunneling and device logging.
This allowed devices to evade monitoring, transmit untracked data outside secure channels, and potentially enable leaks or hacks, as noted by former officials and experts like ex-NSA hacker Jake Williams. A confrontation ensued with Secret Service when DOGE accessed the roof unannounced [3].
This comes on the heels of the AHA and other parties in the suit against the government posting the video depositions of some of the DOGE people to youtube [1], which are fascinating to watch.
Justin Fox not being able to say what DEI is really tells you everything you need to know about how grants were cancelled.
If the Post named you as someone who did something, and you didn't do that thing, and that thing harmed you in some way, you would sue them. That would cost the Post money, and they obviously don't want to spend money on anything that their staff does.
Agency:
"Social Security initially denied Borges’s allegations and said the data referenced in his complaint is stored in a secure environment walled-off from the internet."
Ah walled of the internet, so no one can get there and copy the data to a flashdrive. Move on, move on!
Unfortunately it seems quite believable. This is the same outfit that fired a bunch of people responsible for overseeing the US Nuclear Arsenal. [0] The combination of arrogance and stupidity was breathtaking.
While it's hard to overestimate the clownishness of this administration, I'd want to see the original wording of this denial before concluding that they said something that stupid, versus the author of this article paraphrasing it in a stupid manner. I'm not sure if this is what they're referring to, but the only response from the SSA that I found with a brief search doesn't say anything so foolish: https://dailycaller.com/2025/09/02/social-security-administr...
In principle, flagrant abuse of the pardon power is blocked by Congress's ability to impeach and remove a President who engages in such abuse.
In practice, that has always been an ineffective threat against Presidents who are within days of leaving office anyway. And more importantly, the framers of the Constitution seemed to have entirely failed to imagine a party like today's Republicans who value strict personal loyalty to the President over every other principle of government.
I mean enforcing the laws on the books would be a good start. Corruption quickly breeds more and more corruption if it isn't rooted out and punished. Everyone who isn't corrupt starts losing and the benefits of not being corrupt evaporate
Cool. Investigate it. If they really did take data off a government system without permission, charge them with the most serious thing you can find in a district where they're likely to be convicted. Then send them to prison to delete years or decades off their lives.
See if Musk was in any way involved, or acted with such reckless disregard for known security standards that he could be civilly or criminally liable. Do the same as above for him.
The only way this stops is if consequences are introduced.
Can any of the administration's defenders explain to me how this is actually a good thing and not the exact thing people were warning about a year ago?
No they cannot. They don't offer real arguments, they make pre-textual arguments and they bullshit. (bullshit in the formal Harry G. Frankfurt sense of the word.) If an argument they make suits them, they will stand by that argument. If an argument ends up not suiting them, they will readily discard and fabricate a different justification.
So many years of dealing with this administration, and people are still attempting to point our hypocrisy and hold people to standards with regard to principle, past statements, character, etc. None of it will work here.
> “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre
"Musk says he'll fix the corrupt Democrat-run government and reduce two trillion in spending and given his track record I have no reason not to believe him."
Real quote from a friend when this whole thing was going down.
I've always wondered what the endgame of that farce was. Cost-cutting was clearly always a pretense and a bad one at that. There's made up claims about 300 year olds getting Social Security but I think this only proves that the SSA database was an explicit goal and that was cover.
But why? The only conclusion I can come to is "stealing elections". I'll include this partial list I made of Republican voter suppression efforts going back decades [1].
I believe out there someone is collecting all this data into an AI model to predict how people will vote, something that Cambridge Analytica was a toy version of. But it goes beyond how people will vote but whether they will vote. Likewise, data will be constructed to strike off people from voter rolls if the system believes they won't vote how you want. We've seen efforts like this where similar-sounding names of felons in other states are used to strike off people from voter rolls. And that's a real problem because people might not know they're no longer registered to vote and in some states you have to register 30 or more days before the election.
There is essentially infinite money available to fund Republicans stealing elections because it results in public funding cuts to give even more tax breaks to billionaires.
You can't directly use the SSA databsae obviously so any effort must be small enough to not draw attention, involve part or all of the computing done overseas to avoid legal scrutiny and/or "washing" that data through data provider services. I would bet if you started exhaustively looking at various companies in or adjacent to these spaces, you'd find some pretty dodgy stuff.
If we need to sum up the state of gov now I would pick the following quote:
He told another colleague, who refused to help him upload the data because of legal concerns, that he expected to receive a presidential pardon if his actions were deemed to be illegal, according to the complaint.
Americans are about to find out why data protection laws exist in the EU, and why even the government has to follow it.
Nobody should have permission to query 70M Americans, it's a huge security flaw for the average citizen. But Pentagon has been doing this for a while a la Snowden, and the average american doesn't seem to be worried. With Snowden becoming a menace rather than a hero.
Once private government data from Americans starts being heavily used to mess up elections, or even worse, persecute people with a different opinion than the ruling party...
Americans will finally wake up that GDPR doesn't stiffle innovation, but rather protect its citizens from an evil actors.
But it may be too late, like when NSDAP started chasing jews and migrants. There was nothing they could do other than to flee to survive.
What kind of job would you realistically take this data to? What company would even so much as look at data procured in this manor. I can think of one that's evil enough and probably have the protection of the US government, but it's not like they could acquire the data directly, if it was necessary.
If I had to make a wild guess, xAI. The article states they took a job at a government contractor.
It’s interesting (horrifying) to think of the implications actually. People wouldn’t buy this data directly, it’s too obviously illegally procured. But laundered through an LLM to provide “insights” without citation? That’s plausible deniability.
My understanding is stats canada gets offered a lot of money for this data after being anonymized. A lot of employers might not ask questions if someone had really good data they could use to help market their product. Especially politically aligned think tanks
You can’t just donate these tables to the Republican Party; they’re evidence. You need to repack them for deniability. These will be used to cross-check if voters can be ruled vaguely ineligible.
[+] [-] neonate|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] lateforwork|3 days ago|reply
DOGE staff installed the terminal on the Eisenhower Executive Office Building roof in February 2025 without notifying White House communications or cybersecurity teams, ignoring their prior warnings [2]. The resulting "Starlink Guest" Wi-Fi used only a password—no usernames or two-factor authentication—unlike standard networks requiring full VPN tunneling and device logging.
This allowed devices to evade monitoring, transmit untracked data outside secure channels, and potentially enable leaks or hacks, as noted by former officials and experts like ex-NSA hacker Jake Williams. A confrontation ensued with Secret Service when DOGE accessed the roof unannounced [3].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/elon-musk-sta...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/06/07/starlin...
[3] https://www.wired.com/story/white-house-starlink-wifi/
[+] [-] scroot|3 days ago|reply
Justin Fox not being able to say what DEI is really tells you everything you need to know about how grants were cancelled.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@historiansorg
[+] [-] aestetix|3 days ago|reply
Why not? Shouldn't the public be allowed to learn who all the DOGE employees were? Federal employees are public record, are they not?
[+] [-] NicuCalcea|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] WarmWash|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] kbos87|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] mistrial9|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] starkparker|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] estimator7292|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] ipython|3 days ago|reply
That said there is a list by propublica: https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/
[+] [-] charcircuit|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] KingOfCoders|3 days ago|reply
Agency: "Social Security initially denied Borges’s allegations and said the data referenced in his complaint is stored in a secure environment walled-off from the internet."
Ah walled of the internet, so no one can get there and copy the data to a flashdrive. Move on, move on!
You can't make that up.
[+] [-] doomboiardee|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] hodgesrm|3 days ago|reply
Unfortunately it seems quite believable. This is the same outfit that fired a bunch of people responsible for overseeing the US Nuclear Arsenal. [0] The combination of arrogance and stupidity was breathtaking.
[0] https://thebulletin.org/2025/04/doges-staff-firing-fiasco-at...
[+] [-] tantalor|3 days ago|reply
> copied to a flashdrive
Both of these cannot be true. A secure environment does not allow trivial data exfiltration over USB.
[+] [-] wat10000|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 days ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mrmanner|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] vibe_assassin|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] Steuard|3 days ago|reply
In practice, that has always been an ineffective threat against Presidents who are within days of leaving office anyway. And more importantly, the framers of the Constitution seemed to have entirely failed to imagine a party like today's Republicans who value strict personal loyalty to the President over every other principle of government.
[+] [-] philipov|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] wil421|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] pwillia7|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] lenerdenator|3 days ago|reply
See if Musk was in any way involved, or acted with such reckless disregard for known security standards that he could be civilly or criminally liable. Do the same as above for him.
The only way this stops is if consequences are introduced.
[+] [-] 5upplied_demand|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] everdrive|3 days ago|reply
So many years of dealing with this administration, and people are still attempting to point our hypocrisy and hold people to standards with regard to principle, past statements, character, etc. None of it will work here.
[+] [-] pwillia7|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|3 days ago|reply
Real quote from a friend when this whole thing was going down.
[+] [-] SV_BubbleTime|3 days ago|reply
I don’t believe anyone here if they say that is honestly a standard that they held through previous administrations.
I think there are plenty of ways to criticize Trump without abandoning my own principles.
[+] [-] JKCalhoun|3 days ago|reply
And: https://archive.is/Mw5bh
[+] [-] lovich|2 days ago|reply
[+] [-] shadowgovt|3 days ago|reply
I have a sinking suspicion this engineer won't see the inside of a jail cell.
[+] [-] jmyeet|3 days ago|reply
But why? The only conclusion I can come to is "stealing elections". I'll include this partial list I made of Republican voter suppression efforts going back decades [1].
I believe out there someone is collecting all this data into an AI model to predict how people will vote, something that Cambridge Analytica was a toy version of. But it goes beyond how people will vote but whether they will vote. Likewise, data will be constructed to strike off people from voter rolls if the system believes they won't vote how you want. We've seen efforts like this where similar-sounding names of felons in other states are used to strike off people from voter rolls. And that's a real problem because people might not know they're no longer registered to vote and in some states you have to register 30 or more days before the election.
There is essentially infinite money available to fund Republicans stealing elections because it results in public funding cuts to give even more tax breaks to billionaires.
You can't directly use the SSA databsae obviously so any effort must be small enough to not draw attention, involve part or all of the computing done overseas to avoid legal scrutiny and/or "washing" that data through data provider services. I would bet if you started exhaustively looking at various companies in or adjacent to these spaces, you'd find some pretty dodgy stuff.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47053453
[+] [-] gslin|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] throw4847285|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] greatgib|2 days ago|reply
[+] [-] thiago_fm|3 days ago|reply
Nobody should have permission to query 70M Americans, it's a huge security flaw for the average citizen. But Pentagon has been doing this for a while a la Snowden, and the average american doesn't seem to be worried. With Snowden becoming a menace rather than a hero.
Once private government data from Americans starts being heavily used to mess up elections, or even worse, persecute people with a different opinion than the ruling party...
Americans will finally wake up that GDPR doesn't stiffle innovation, but rather protect its citizens from an evil actors.
But it may be too late, like when NSDAP started chasing jews and migrants. There was nothing they could do other than to flee to survive.
[+] [-] mrweasel|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] afavour|3 days ago|reply
It’s interesting (horrifying) to think of the implications actually. People wouldn’t buy this data directly, it’s too obviously illegally procured. But laundered through an LLM to provide “insights” without citation? That’s plausible deniability.
[+] [-] dmschulman|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] afinlayson|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffwask|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] enoint|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] joquarky|2 days ago|reply
[+] [-] esseph|3 days ago|reply
Banks
Sales/Marketing
Healthcare
Palantir
xAI
Any social security scammers
Etc.
[+] [-] unknown|3 days ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gslin|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|3 days ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 days ago|reply
[deleted]