Give them credit for admitting what this story is about right in the headline: “DOGE’s grab of personal data stokes privacy and security fears.” Stoking fears is really all this 39 paragraph story is about. This isn’t reporting, this is modeling a kind of catastrophizing response to their jittery progressive readers. I’m just going to bold some of the obvious points where the authors (there are three) admit this is more about fears than reality.
Musk’s group is seeking often unfettered access, citing suspicion of fraud and waste. In addition to concerns about exposing private information, some critics fear handing all the data to DOGE could enable bad actors to leak sensitive information to compromise political adversaries, act on personal vendettas or stir up online mobs against opponents.
This article is clearly intended to stir up an online mob aimed at an opponent (Musk) so the Post warning that DOGE might do the same is pretty amusing. And it just goes on like this with the Post kinda-sorta admitting that there’s no sign any of this is illegal.
Just allowing Musk and his team to see some records isn’t illegal. Because they’re designated as “special government employees” and many are senior advisers at Cabinet agencies, they are entitled to much of the access they have sought, and some judges have declined to kick them out while hearing more evidence.But they need a reasonable basis to peruse files and databases, experts said.
They need a “reasonable basis” to access the data and many paragraphs later the authors finally admit that maybe they have just such a basis.
DOGE could use protected personal information at Social Security — including the world’s largest repository of medical information — to search for improper payments, but it wouldn’t amount to much return on investment, according to former senior agency officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
For years, officials there have studied the threshold at which detecting improper payments becomes unprofitable. The agency has repeatedly explored building more robust systems to ferret out over- and underpayments, which accounted for 0.3 percent of the more than $1.3 trillion in payments in the 2024 fiscal year, adding up to roughly $4 billion, according to federal data. But it could cost more than that to track all the money down, the former officials said…
Searching for fraud, waste and abuse, as well as trying to develop more efficient government systems, could be valid reasons for DOGE to access the data, several lawyers opposing DOGE say. Feeding data into artificial intelligence programs, which The Post and others have reported the Education Department is doing, and is suspected by employees elsewhere, may also be legal if the move involves closely guarded, in-house programs.
So one agency, SSA, is probably making about $4 billion in mistaken payments per year and that seems like enough of a reasonable basis to justify the access they are seeking. In short, the possibility of saving $4 billion is worth exploring. And that really could have been the whole point of this article, at least it could have been in a different publication.
But that’s not the narrative Democrats are pushing this week, so it’s not what the Post is publishing. The message being dictated by Democrats is that Musk and DOGE are a threat. So having found nothing worth reporting on that front, the Post settles for left-wing paranoia.
Kristofer Goldsmith, an Iraq War veteran who tracks and reports violent right-wing extremists, said he has grown worried for his safety since learning that some of the DOGE members had frequented internet groups popular with criminal hackers or espoused extremist views…
“I’m very concerned that the entire federal government is being compromised by people who want to target, harass and maybe even kill me,” Goldsmith said. He is a plaintiff in a lawsuit over DOGE’s access to personal records that led to a temporary restraining order Monday against the government.
Elon wants me dead! Forget about the billions of dollars being wasted or misspent. Focus on the real issue which, according to this story, is that some guy you’ve never heard of is having a panic attack.
Democrats are shouting instructions to the media and the media is doing their best to comply. It’s not surprising, especially not at the Post, but it is tiresome.
