Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Elon Musk’s Doge team granted ‘full access’ to federal payment system

Lengthy excerpt from yours with some links from original source added:

"olgalautman.substack.com
Why has Musk gained access to our data?
Olga Lautman
[...]
Meanwhile, Musk’s aides at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management locked career federal workers out of key systems containing their sensitive personal data, restricting access to databases critical for managing federal employee information. Simultaneously, Musk’s allies—including former employees from his companies, and college students—have infiltrated the General Services Administration (GSA), using White House security credentials to access federal systems, deploy AI software, and reshape the agency to fit Musk’s agenda.

Also, Musk ally Thomas Shedd has taken control of Technology Transformation Services (TTS), a key government IT agency leading to chaos, secrecy, and surveillance tactics. Employees report being forced into unannounced meetings with unidentified individuals, some of whom appear to be college students with disturbingly high clearance levels.

TTS manages sensitive government data across multiple agencies, and this Musk-led coup—backed by Trump’s unauthorized, fake DOGE—poses grave national security risks. Employees fear it is part of a broader ideological purge and surveillance operation that could weaponize federal technology against government workers and the public.

This has nothing to do with government efficiency—it’s a power grab.
[...]
Please, everyone, call your Senators, Representatives, and local officials immediately. Demand answers: Who authorized Musk and his aides to take control of federal payment systems and our sensitive data? What safeguards are in place to prevent abuse of this access? How will our financial and personal information be used? Who is holding DOGE, OPM, GSA, and TTS accountable for these breaches of protocol?

Flood their phone lines. Send emails. This is a blatant and dangerous power play—one we must resist with everything we have.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Mr. Musk’s representatives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending. Via NYT .. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/us/politics/elon-musk-doge-federal-payments-system.html

A recent high school graduate and former Neuralink intern has joined meetings to review lines of code and other work history of career public servants, sparking chaos at a major government agency. Via Wired .. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-tech-workers-gsa-tts/

Musk aides restrict access to federal employee data systems

Musk's team works around the clock, installs sofa beds at OPM

Concerns include cybersecurity and lack of oversight

Via Reuters

I have been documenting Trump and his cronies’ rapid moves to consolidate power, undermine democracy, and dismantle civil rights and freedoms on The Trump Tyranny Tracker. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do.
Your link - https://olgalautman.substack.com/p/why-has-musk-gained-access-to-our?r=2ryrnu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwY2xjawINsPlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHU9Njn-0C4IdBQeR2zWXBfJxkia-GAyZdUD2mOo8SbfLxAdHklL5yOMVLQ_aem_AvzWxVaj-gU2A38XGTW30w&triedRedirect=true "

Related:
Using a self-inflicted trade war to smokescreen the coup being done by Swastikar Elon on the Treasury isn't even fooling farmers.
Why was Elon Musk, who has no security clearance, given access to our Social Security payment data? This is the question we should be asking over all of the distractions.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175753907

Trump’s disregard for US constitution ‘a blitzkrieg on the law’, legal experts say
[...]Donald Trump’s rapid-fire and controversial moves that have ranged from banning birthright citizenship to firing 18 inspectors general means the US president has shown a greater willingness than his predecessors to violate the constitution and federal law, some historians and legal scholars say
P - These scholars pointed to other Trump actions they say blatantly broke the law, such as freezing trillions of dollar in federal spending and dismissing members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), even though they were confirmed by the Senate and had several years left in their terms.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175747413

Updated: I agree. Musk is orchestrating treason, plain and simple. His actions though likely wouldn't satisfy the law. One should not have to physically join an enemy fighting force which is waging war with the US, to be seen as 'adhering to US enemies'.
P - Treason is defined on the federal level in Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution as "only in levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Most state constitutions include similar definitions of treason, specifically limited to levying war against the state, "adhering to the enemies" of the state, or aiding the enemies of the state, and requiring two witnesses or a confession in open court.[2] Fewer than 30 people have ever been charged with treason under these laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_States
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175747469

Musk needs to be arrested and tried, and then his US citizenship needs to
be stripped, and after he's served 10 years in prison, he should be deported.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175747380

Trump’s treasury secretary gives the world’s richest person entry to one of the most sensitive US government databases

Ed Pilkington
Mon 3 Feb 2025 04.13 AEDT

Elon Musk’s government-slashing crew, the “department of government efficiency”, has been given access to the federal payment system, exposing the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans as well as details of public contractors who compete directly with Musk’s own businesses, an influential US senator has confirmed.

Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon and the ranking member of the Senate finance committee, posted on Bluesky that sources had confirmed to him that the Treasury’s highly sensitive database had been opened up to the tech billionaire and his team.

Donald Trump’s new treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, had granted the billionaire’s Doge team “full access to this system”.

Wyden added that the data bonanza included “social security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors … All of it.”

Confirmation of the arrangement suggests that Musk, the world’s richest person, now has entry to one of the most sensitive US government databases. The system controls more than $6tn of federal cashflow each year, with millions of Americans depending on it for social security and Medicare benefits, federal salaries and more.

Until now, the information stored on it has been exceptionally closely guarded, with only a select few officials having clearance to control it. But since the advent of the Trump administration on 20 January, members of Musk’s Doge team have been battering to be given access.

On Friday, the Washington Post revealed that the treasury department’s top civil servant had retired after more than 30 years of service. David Lebryk had clashed with Musk associates over their efforts to effectively break into the system.

According to the New York Times, Lebryk had been placed on administrative leave after he objected to Doge agents being given access. The newspaper reported that the incoming treasury secretary, Bessent, gave his permission to the new deal late on Friday.

Under the arrangement, the Times reported, one of the Doge members who can now scour the data of millions of Americans is Tom Krause, chief executive of the tech company Cloud Software Group.

Before confirming the deal, Wyden had already sounded the alarm about Musk’s attempts to break into such a sensitive federal database. On Friday he wrote to Bessent warning that the system was so critical “it simply cannot fail”.

Wyden warned that “any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy. I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems”.

One of the fears about granting entry to the system to a freewheeling outfit controlled by Musk is that he could use it to block payments to a large number of federal programs as part of his mission to slash and burn the US government. Wyden also suggested that the move could pose a national security threat, given Musk’s extensive business interests in China, which in turn could give the Chinese intelligence services a pipeline into US data.

This “endangers US cybersecurity and creates conflicts of interest that make [Musk’s] access to these systems a national security risk”, Wyden said.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/02/elon-musk-doge-access-federal-payment-system