The chief data officer at the Social Security Administration, who sounded the alarm that the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded the unsecured personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans onto a vulnerable cloud server, is out after filing his whistleblower complaint.
Charles Borges filed the complaint on Wednesday, which revealed that members of DOGE, tasked with eliminating parts of the federal government, had accessed personal data uploaded to a cloud server.
New York Times political correspondent Nicholas Nehamas posted the resignation letter on X, saying that while he resigned, he was ultimately shoved out of a hostile work environment.
In the letter of resignation dated Friday, Borges said he was "involuntarily leaving my position at the Social Security Administration (SSA)."
"This involuntary resignation is the result of SSA's actions against me, which make my duties impossible to perform legally and ethically, have caused me serious attendant mental, physical, and emotional distress, and constitute a constructive discharge. After reporting internally to management and externally to regulators, serious data and security and integrity concerns impacting our citizens' most sensitive personal data, I have suffered exclusion, isolation, internal strife, and a culture of fear, creating a hostile work environment and making work conditions intolerable."
Borges noted that he's been in public service for decades, serving first as an active-duty Naval Officer and is a decorated combat veteran. He explained that in his capacity at SSA, he has been "responsible for providing oversight and Governance to ensure the safety, integrity, and security of the public's data." That requires "full visibility into data access and exchange across all SSA systems and environments."
He was responsible for "ensuring compliance with federal data privacy, security, and regulatory requirements, as well as ensuring data is handled in accordance with internal and external policies, standards and industry best practices." However, Borges said, that he recently was made aware of "several projects and incidents" in which laws or regulations were violated.
Borges warned that it involves the "potential safety and security of high-value data assets in the cloud, possibly providing unauthorized or inappropriate access to agency enterprise data storage solutions and may involve unauthorized data exchange with other agencies." He explained that it came as a result of 'newly installed leadership in IT and executive offices." Those new staff created a culture of fear that made employees scared to share information or even discuss "questionable activities" out of "retribution or termination."