One of my worst fears realized
Early last year, Elon Musk and Donald Trump seized control of the highly sensitive payment system at the Treasury Department. It gave them access to a trove of highly sensitive information about Americans that pay into Social Security, receive Medicare payments, the money owed to government workers, and much more.
I rallied with the people to send a clear message to Trump, Musk, and the DOGE goons: get your hands off our money, and get the hell out.
This week, a whistleblower complaint laid bare one of the worst fears I had back then: that Americans' Social Security data would be mishandled, exposed, and exploited.
A former DOGE employee allegedly took a thumb drive containing the Social Security information of hundreds of millions of people to a new job.
This would be one of the worst data breaches in history. But it didn't happen because we were hacked by a foreign power, or because of some massive computer error.
It happened because Trump's administration wanted to exploit people's most private information for political gain.
Normally when a bank gets robbed, the thieves have to forcefully break in. But imagine if the bank manager (of their own free will) happily handed the thieves the keys to the vault – and then shared in the profits of the heist. That's the best way to describe how Trump opened the doors of our government to Musk and DOGE, and all that's followed.
We need to use this moment to make clear: if you steal people's personal data (or enable such stealing), there will be consequences.
It's time for hearings, investigations, and — where the evidence merits — prosecutions.
More soon,
Ron
