That's an interesting rephrasing for "sidestepping all security to get access".
> The access is read only, and they are not linking personal data between agencies
Yup, that's exacly what someone who wants to change the beneficiaries of a few contracts and payments, as well as fire some of the people overseeing my companies would say.
Hence why people are reacting negatively.
Most likely this involves scrubbing any personal data whenever possible, or anonymising it whenever it's not.
Most of their work doesn't involve personal data at all, and they only come across it incidentally.
Don’t you think it’s a problem you can’t say this with certainty or point to an authority who has assured us this, and there’s no way to verify if it’s true because theres’s no oversight of DOGE?
Would you tolerate such uncertainty from even a SaaS provider? Why should we tolerate it from our government?
Phew, and I was worried for a second...
Edit: to the down voters, go do some basic fact checking for Trump and Musk tweets and then we'll talk.
These means can easily lead to a nightmare. We've been through that a century ago. Look up Dehomag. Never Again.
I am a bit confused by your stressing the access is read-only. Isn't that obviously given (apologies for the redundant words, but I really don't know how to convey my confusion). For what purpose they could ever be given a write access to the hundreds of federal databases they are supposed to analyze?
Also, if they don't have the manpower to go over the data one by one then they don't have the power to go over them in parallel. When you say "parallelising the work" what exactly does that mean? What is it specifically that they are "parallelising"? Is there an engineer/analyst looking at multiple screens simultaneously and arriving conclusions for multiple agencies at the same time?
What does he know of the genesis and status of these payments? Congress directs spending and oversees the administration, not the other way around.
Why does he have to finish in an arbitrary time frame?
This is all justification after the fact for those who support Musk/Trump unconditionally.
It's all fun and games until your Medicare/Social Security/Tax Refund or other legitimate payment gets cancelled arbitrarily, illegally and unconstitutionally.
> Trump has prohibited Musk from being involved in with the review in agencies where he was a material conflict
I'm not saying these are or aren't happening, but it seems like a lot of "good faith" assumptions here. If you assume Musk is an unethical actor, these seem mostly meaningless.
If he got involved in a review of a program where he has a conflict, there's plenty of discontent government employees who would blow the whistle, moreover, if he made any recommendations relating to this, it would be obvious.
Regarding personal data, I'm not sure what technical safeguards they have in place, but given the potential reputational harm to the Trump admin if anything leaked, I'm sure they are doing everything possible to avoid touching it whenever possible, and anonymising it when they have to process it.
Elon is starting to catch on.
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/19/its-easy-to-save-billion...
They are literally firing people first and then calling them back? How is that efficiency?
I cannot believe we are talking about these people seriously with all the BS "We saved $* Billion dollars to stop Mind Control News" on the DOGE "website".
You keep saying things that are blatantly untrue, people give you massive evidence they aren't true, then you keep saying them. Why is that?
Elon Musk’s Companies Were Under Investigation by Five Inspectors General When the Trump Administration Fired Them and Made Musk the Investigator
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2025/02/elon-musks-companies-...
https://www.levernews.com/trump-purges-inspectors-general-in...
Agency sent a memo to all agency staff notifying them that “all election security activities” would be paused pending the results of an internal investigation. The memo also stated that the administration was cutting off all funds to the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center—a Department of Homeland Security–funded organization that helps state and local officials monitor, analyze, and respond to cyberattacks targeting the nation’s election hardware and software.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/trump-doge-layof...
FDA staff were reviewing Elon Musk’s brain implant company. DOGE just fired them.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/17/fda-...
https://gizmodo.com/doge-reportedly-cuts-fda-employees-inves...
Secondly, Trump has clearly stated that Musk is not permitted to act where he has a conflict, and the agency directors will be aware of this.
Thirdly, you're giving examples of DOGE "firing" people in agencies where they aren't even active yet.
Secondly, Trump has clearly stated that Musk is not permitted to act where he has a conflict, and the agency directors will be aware of this.
Trump is honest and can be trusted in your experience?
If these aren't conflicts of interest, what would an actual conflict of interest look like?
Deferred resignation offers ("fork in the road" emails) and terminating all probationary employees (those without civil service protections) are cross-agency recommendations by DOGE since the beginning. It doesn't make sense to say they "aren't even active yet" when 8 days after inauguration the entire civil service was sent the same email that Twitter employees got.
Additionally, the EO establishing DOGE required all agency heads to assign a team from DOGE within 30 days, which has passed. They're everywhere.
To make sensible recommendations, DOGE needs data about the major programs within each agency. They can't tackle each agency consecutively, since there are more agencies than days until the deadline, so they are parallelising the work.
The access is read only, and they are not linking personal data between agencies, but rather doing a bunch of separate audits in parallel.
Trump has prohibited Musk from being involved in any reviews where he was a material conflict (FAA for example).