What Could DOGE Do With Federal Data?
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When the Department of Government Efficiency stormed the federal government, it had a clear objective—to remake the government, one must remake the civil service. And in particular, the team of Elon Musk acolytes 'focused on accessing the terminals, uncovering the button pushers, and taking control,' Michael Scherer, Ashley Parker, Shane Harris, and I wrote this week in an investigation into the DOGE takeover. Computers, they figured, run the government.
DOGE members and new political appointees have sought access to data and IT systems across the government—at the Treasury Department, IRS, Department of Health and Human Services, and more. Government technologists have speculated that DOGE's next step will be to centralize those data and feed them into AI systems, making bureaucratic processes more efficient while also identifying fraud and waste, or perhaps simply uncovering further targets to dismantle. Musk's team has reportedly already fed Department of Education data into an AI system, and Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer recently appointed to the General Services Administration, has repeatedly spoken with staff about an AI strategy, mentioning using the technology to develop coding agents and analyze federal contracts.
No matter DOGE's goal, putting so much information in one place and under the control of a small group of people with little government experience has raised substantial security concerns. As one recently departed federal technology official wrote in draft testimony for lawmakers, which we obtained, 'DOGE is one romance scam away from a national security emergency.'
This Is What Happens When the DOGE Guys Take Over
By Michael Scherer, Ashley Parker, Matteo Wong and Shane Harris
They arrived casually dressed and extremely confident—a self-styled super force of bureaucratic disrupters, mostly young men with engineering backgrounds on a mission from the president of the United States, under the command of the world's wealthiest online troll.
On February 7, five Department of Government Efficiency representatives made it to the fourth floor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau headquarters, where the executive suites are located. They were interrupted while trying the handles of locked office doors.
'Hey, can I help you?' asked an employee of the agency that was soon to be forced into bureaucratic limbo. The DOGE crew offered no clear answer.
What to Read Next
DOGE and new Trump appointees' access to federal data and computer systems is growing in both breadth and depth. Defense technologies, Americans' sensitive personal and health data, dangerous biological research, and more are in reach. Within at least one agency, USAID, they have achieved 'God mode,' according to an employee in senior leadership—meaning Elon Musk's team has 'total control over systems that Americans working in conflict zones rely on, the ability to see and manipulate financial systems that have historically awarded tens of billions of dollars, and perhaps much more,' Charlie Warzel, Ian Bogost, and I reported this week. With this level of control, the USAID staffer feared, DOGE could terminate federal workers in 'a conflict zone like Ukraine, Sudan, or Ethiopia.'
In the coming weeks, we reported, 'the team is expected to enter IT systems at the CDC and Federal Aviation Administration.' Just how far Musk and his team can go is uncertain; they face various lawsuits, which have thus far had varying success. The team may be trying to improve the government's inner workings, as is its stated purpose. 'But in the offices where the team is reaching internal IT systems,' Charlie, Ian, and I wrote, 'some are beginning to worry that [Musk] might prefer to destroy' the government, 'to take it over, or just to loot its vaults for himself.'
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"But the people that are here working hard, especially the ones married to Americans — I mean, that's always been a way to secure a green card.' The process to apply for Paola Clouatre's green card went smoothly at first, but eventually she learned ICE had issued an order for her deportation in 2018 after her mother failed to appear at an immigration hearing. Clouatre and her mother had been estranged for years — Clouatre cycled out of homeless shelters as a teenager — and up until a couple of months ago, Clouatre had 'no idea' about her mother's missed hearing or the deportation order, her husband said. Adrian Clouatre recalled that a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services staffer asked about the deportation order during a May 27 appointment as part of her green card application. After Paola Clouatre explained that she was trying to reopen her case, the staffer asked her and her husband to wait in the lobby for paperwork regarding a follow-up appointment, which her husband said he believed was a 'ploy.' Soon, officers arrived and handcuffed Paola Clouatre, who handed her wedding ring to her husband for safekeeping. Adrian Clouatre, eyes welling with tears, said he and his wife had tried to 'do the right thing' and that he felt ICE officers should have more discretion over arrests, though he understood they were trying to do their jobs. 'It's just a hell of a way to treat a veteran,' said Carey Holliday, a former immigration judge who is now representing the couple. 'You take their wives and send them back to Mexico?' The Clouatres filed a motion for a California-based immigration judge to reopen the case on Paola's deportation order and are waiting to hear back, Holliday said. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement that Paola Clouatre 'is in the country illegally" and that the administration is 'not going to ignore the rule of law.' 'Ignoring an Immigration Judge's order to leave the U.S. is a bad idea,' U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a June 9 post on X which appeared to refer to Clouatre's case. The agency added that the government 'has a long memory and no tolerance for defiance when it comes to making America safe again.' Adrian Clouatre said the agency's X post does not accurately reflect his wife's situation because she entered the country as a minor with her mother, seeking asylum. 'She was not aware of the removal order, so she was not knowingly defying it,' he said. 'If she had been arrested, she would have been deported long ago, and we would never have met." Prior to the Trump administration's push to drive up deportations, USCIS provided much more discretion for veterans seeking legal status for a family member, said Holliday and Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert. In a Feb. 28 memo, the agency said it 'will no longer exempt' from deportation people in groups that had received more grace in the past. This includes the families of military personnel or veterans, Stock said. As of June 12, the agency said it has referred upward of 26,000 cases to ICE for deportation. USCIS still offers a program allowing family members of military personnel who illegally entered the U.S. to remain in the country as they apply for a green card. But there no longer appears to be room for leeway, such as giving a veteran's spouse like Paola Clouatre the opportunity to halt her active deportation order without facing arrest, Stock said. But numerous Marine Corps recruiters have continued to post ads on social media, geared toward Latinos, promoting enlistment as a way to gain 'protection from deportation' for family members. 'I think it's bad for them to be advertising that people are going to get immigration benefits when it appears that the administration is no longer offering these immigration benefits,' Stock said. 'It sends the wrong message to the recruits.' Marine Corps spokesperson Master Sgt. Tyler Hlavac told The Associated Press that recruiters have now been informed they are 'not the proper authority' to 'imply that the Marine Corps can secure immigration relief for applicants or their families.' ___
