The White House is playing games with Elon Musk's official role in the administration, and a national security expert said "people should be freaking out" that his allies have access to their private data.
Three federal employees' unions have sued the Trump administration to stop the Treasury Department from sharing confidential information stored by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which handles the U.S. government's accounting, central payment systems and public debt, with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and a public interest lawyer explained the risks involved.
"You don't want government overreach, you don't want government to be able to do whatever they want with the information they have on you – that's why these rules are in place," said Kel McClanahan, executive director of the nonprofit law firm National Security Counselors. "People should be freaking out at the idea that someone who has a profit motive to do most of what he does is being given access to whether or not you get paid, or you get your check, or your hospital gets a check, or your information about the background investigation that you had 10 years ago when you were in the rush to get a check. This is a big five-alarm fire."
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Marko Elez, a 25-year-old engineer who worked for two Musk companies, reportedly has the ability to review and revise the computer system used by the bureau, which collects personal and financial information for beneficiaries, including their names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, birth places, home addresses and telephone numbers, email addresses, and bank account information – and the lawsuit alleges that DOGE operatives are violating the Privacy Act of 1974 and statutory IRS rules.
"The White House has been very, very careful in what they say about DOGE and what they say about Musk in order to be completely exempt from the lawsuit and make the lawsuit arguably go away," McClanahan said. "They would have to say that the United States DOGE service, the thing that they set up by executive order on Day One, is the same as all the people running around calling themselves DOGE before the inauguration, and they have not done that. They would also have to say not only that Elon Musk is a special government employee, but that he is the United States DOGE administrator who is the head of the U.S. DOGE service. They have not said that. In fact, CNN reported yesterday that they have been asked, is he the U.S. DOGE administrator, and the White House won't respond. So as far as we can tell, it has no effect because he's still running around calling himself DOGE when nobody will say that he's affiliated with the only office that could legally operate."
"For instance, even if he works for the White House as the U.S. DOGE administrator, the Privacy Act says that he can't be given access to all of the [Office of Personnel Management] records," McClanahan added. "There are things called routine uses that are set forward in the Privacy Act that, say, data can only be given to certain people for certain things, and the White House is very rarely one of those things. But if he's an outsider, they definitely can't give it to him, and he definitely can't have access to this information."
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