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- cross-posted to:
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Summary
Congressā Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been auditing Elon Muskās so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) since March over concerns about unauthorized access to sensitive data across federal agencies.
DOGE operativesāmany tied to Muskās companies and lacking government experienceāhave infiltrated agencies like Labor, Treasury, and Social Security, raising alarms over privacy violations and system integrity.
GAO is examining DOGEās access levels, policy compliance, and potential misuse of data.
Lawmakers call it a āconstitutional emergency,ā citing fears of data consolidation, inadequate oversight, and threats to public trust and cybersecurity in the Trump administration.
The GAO doesnāt actually have any authority. Whatās going to happen here is that theyāll write a publicly available report detailing all of the horrible things that DOGE is doing and itāll have a ārecommendationsā section at the end. And thatās it. From there itās up to our useless Congress to act on the information, or otherwise lawsuits from anyone with standing. But we all know how that goes.
Ironically, thatās part of the reason DOGE even exists. They do the same job, but congress has almost always ignored the GAO. The difference is that the GAO actually puts in the work and puts out good reports instead of just wrecking things.
Then Elon is going to tweet out some nonsense misrepresenting the report just like he did with their report they put out last September showing mishandled government spending to the tune of 2.3 trillion dollars between 2003 and 2023. (He first lied and said doge found the mishandled payments when they didnāt. And also said the full 2.3 trillion were Medicaid payments to individuals outside the US. Which was just a blatant fabrication)
This is good in that is how these things are supposed to work.
But the problem is that these are bad faith actors being engaged with in good faith. They are committing crimes and causing irreversible damage and need to be stopped immediately. The US gov has been taken over by fascists and everyone is acting like itās business as usual.
I mean no one I know sees it as business as usual but I do wish the word illegal and crime was being used in broadcast news.