Elon Musk’s operation to break the federal bureaucracy has been both lightning quick and shrouded in darkness.
But federal courts, which have fielded more than a dozen lawsuits from terrified government employees and recipients of public funds, have begun pulling back the curtain on the opaque “Department of Government Efficiency.”
Insights from Federal Courts
Judges, deciding whether to order an abrupt halt to DOGE’s operations, have demanded explanations from the Musk associates tasked with rifling through and revising sensitive government databases. And those operatives’ own words, though heavily lawyered and coordinated by the Justice Department, have nevertheless revealed key details about the aggressive project.
DOGE Teams Across Federal Departments
DOGE itself is an amorphous project housed in Trump’s White House. But its work has been carried out by teams deployed to federal departments. Those teams include a mix of Musk associates and federal officials detailed to assist them. They ostensibly work for cabinet secretaries but report back to Musk.
Some examples:
- The Education Department’s DOGE team is six people: two DOGE employees, two people from within the department and two people detailed from other federal agencies. Adam Ramada, one of the DOGE employees, told a court on Feb. 16 that he recently learned one of the six people hadn’t completed required ethics training. The department’s CIO, Thomas Flagg, described details of the DOGE team’s onboarding as well.
- Ramada is also coordinating efforts at the Department of Labor, where a team of three DOGE officials detailed from the White House is operating.
Concerns and Controversies
In several sworn statements to the courts, career officials described extraordinary steps to protect their closely guarded systems from being compromised by DOGE — and they openly acknowledged the risks posed by granting the teams access to databases of federal transactions, student borrowers’ tax information and consumer complaints about banks.
The organizations and employees suing them say these safeguards fall short and are merely an effort to paper over dangerous exposure of sensitive data to people who aren’t vetted or trained to access it. They describe “many open questions and contradictions” offered by DOGE detailees and their allies, and they found former agency officials to buttress their concerns.
Ensuring Security and Accountability
Adam Martinez, the chief operating officer at CFPB, indicated in a sworn statement on Feb. 13 that the six DOGE employees assigned to the bureau have signed nondisclosure agreements and completed cybersecurity training. One of the employees was given access to Treasury systems that handle CFPB data related to “human capital, finance and procurement.” Martinez said that there are written agreements between CFPB and the employees from other agencies assisting DOGE with their work at the bureau.
Conclusion
Despite the best efforts to safeguard sensitive data and ensure accountability, the presence of DOGE teams in various federal departments continues to raise concerns and spark legal challenges. The intricate workings of this project remain under scrutiny, highlighting the delicate balance between government efficiency and data security.
