Federal workers have filed an emergency lawsuit demanding that courts mandate that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency shuts down the server it has set up at the US Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) headquarters.
Wired reports that an attorney representing two unidentified government workers is alleging that "the server’s continued operation not only violates federal law but is potentially exposing vast quantities of government staffers’ personal information to hostile foreign adversaries through unencrypted email."
The complaint alleges that the DOGE server was installed "without OPM—the government’s human resources department—conducting a mandatory privacy impact assessment required under federal law," writes Wired.
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The publication notes that such an action would violate a 2002 law mandating all agencies to perform privacy assessments before making "substantial changes to information technology."
Given that the server has now given OPM the ability to email the entire federal workforce from one account -- which is something it did not have before -- there's little doubt that the server's presence would be a substantial change.
“[A]t some point after 20 January 2025, OPM allowed unknown individuals to simply bypass its existing systems and security protocols for the stated purpose of being able to communicate directly with those individuals without involving other agencies. In short, the sole purpose of these new systems was expediency," claims the motion.
