Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

BumRushDaShow

(168,703 posts)
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 03:00 PM 17 hrs ago

Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job

Source: Washington Post

March 10, 2026 at 2:33 p.m. EDT


The Social Security Administration’s internal watchdog is investigating a complaint that alleges a former U.S. DOGE Service employee claimed he had access to two highly sensitive agency databases and planned to share the information with his private employer — a claim that, if true, would constitute an unprecedented breach of security protocols at an agency that serves more than 70 million Americans.

The agency’s inspector general is investigating the disclosure and has alerted members of Congress of its existence, according to a letter by the acting inspector general to top members of four congressional committees reviewed by The Washington Post and two people familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations. The inspector general’s office has also shared the disclosure with the Government Accountability Office, which has been conducting its own audit of DOGE’s access to data, according to one of the people.

The Post has reviewed the complaint and spoken with the whistleblower, who issued the complaint anonymously for fear of retaliation. According to the disclosure, the former DOGE software engineer, who worked at the Social Security Administration last year before starting a job at a government contractor in October, allegedly told several co-workers that he possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information, and had at least one on a thumb drive.

The databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names. The complaint does not include specific dates of when he is said to have told colleagues this information, but at least one of the alleged events unfolded around early January, according to the complaint. While working at DOGE, the engineer had approved access to Social Security data.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/10/social-security-data-breach-doge/



No paywall (gift)
31 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job (Original Post) BumRushDaShow 17 hrs ago OP
The USA only has something like 385,000,000 Scrivener7 17 hrs ago #1
The article says info is about living and dead imaginary girl 16 hrs ago #5
Huh? US Population is only 342,000,000 Wiz Imp 11 hrs ago #19
Kick dalton99a 17 hrs ago #2
Should be a class action lawsuit vapor2 17 hrs ago #3
Stolen data is malicious. Lawsuit is definitely cpamomfromtexas 16 hrs ago #7
Including Elon Musk, the Godfather of all the DOGE doggies Attilatheblond 14 hrs ago #13
And Trump. the guy who gave Elon the latitude to do anything with no rules, no oversight JHB 14 hrs ago #14
Put all the DOGE underlings in jail Seinan Sensei 6 hrs ago #24
ARREST these fucking criminals!!!!!!!! Multichromatic 17 hrs ago #4
FBI *should* be raiding ALL of their homes, devices, vehicles - everything. CousinIT 16 hrs ago #6
I agree... BUT... OldBaldy1701E 16 hrs ago #8
Precisely debsy 11 hrs ago #17
Musk should be in a trial for his life. GreenWave 16 hrs ago #9
No shit..And It is nightmarish jfz9580m 3 hrs ago #29
A little late now folks popsdenver 15 hrs ago #10
So who was the new employer Figarosmom 15 hrs ago #11
My money EuterpeThelo 4 hrs ago #27
That can and should be treated as a breach of National Security. Buddyzbuddy 14 hrs ago #12
Time to give us all new identifiers dickthegrouch 12 hrs ago #15
Well, that's huge felony. eggplant 12 hrs ago #16
as do i (seriously) orleans 5 hrs ago #25
Will anyone EFFING investigate these assholes? mdbl 11 hrs ago #18
They fired all the real FBI agents orangecrush 1 hr ago #31
This story needs to be publicized. yellow dahlia 11 hrs ago #20
I thought we already knew that DOGE/Musk had all our SS numbers. llmart 10 hrs ago #21
DOGE was an illegal intelligence and information gathering raid by Elon Musk and his tech bros. Something for everyone! Martin68 10 hrs ago #22
Imho,DOGE obtained the Epstein file trove,also. BattleRow 9 hrs ago #23
(wapo won't even let me read the gift article without creating an account! fuck them! i'll use the archive website orleans 5 hrs ago #26
msn often republishes WaPo articles but I waited and waited and they didn't before I posted but they now have it BumRushDaShow 4 hrs ago #28
This stuff can no longer be allowed to be slide jfz9580m 3 hrs ago #30

Wiz Imp

(9,790 posts)
19. Huh? US Population is only 342,000,000
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 09:19 PM
11 hrs ago

And As of August 2025, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has assigned over 548 million Social Security numbers (SSNs) since the program began in 1936.

cpamomfromtexas

(1,486 posts)
7. Stolen data is malicious. Lawsuit is definitely
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 04:20 PM
16 hrs ago

The answer. Everyone involved or knew about data should be named in the suit.

JHB

(38,144 posts)
14. And Trump. the guy who gave Elon the latitude to do anything with no rules, no oversight
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 05:56 PM
14 hrs ago

Seinan Sensei

(1,505 posts)
24. Put all the DOGE underlings in jail
Wed Mar 11, 2026, 02:05 AM
6 hrs ago

The Musks and tRumps are untouchable for now

If you jail & fine lackeys and minions, that would begin to make a difference.

It’s way the hell better than a strongly worded letter.

CousinIT

(12,482 posts)
6. FBI *should* be raiding ALL of their homes, devices, vehicles - everything.
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 04:00 PM
16 hrs ago

And they should be sued for this because IT IS ILLEGAL. We need MASSIVE FBI raids - unannounced. Get the warrants and get them ALL.

I have no doubt that all of that data has been or will be sold on the dark web for identity theft.

OldBaldy1701E

(10,972 posts)
8. I agree... BUT...
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 04:28 PM
16 hrs ago

...constitute an unprecedented breach of security protocols at an agency that serves more than 70 million Americans.

And... what will be done about it?

And, when? Before or after they have up ended our information and security and sold it to the highest bidder?

jfz9580m

(16,910 posts)
29. No shit..And It is nightmarish
Wed Mar 11, 2026, 04:45 AM
3 hrs ago

My guess at this point is that sometime in the Bush administration (all that “total information awareness” rot) bts this present and appalling rollout of the surveillance state started and started ramping up around the time Google and Facebook started tightening their grip on society.
And these guys have been buying cheap spyware riddled shit from China and probably that creepy NSO group/blackcube etc forever and Russia is known for its ransomware..

The Epstein files aside, there is this trove of data about all the shit these guys did.
The average honest human has petty shit they do not want thrown out there.

Think of these “elite” parasites and their egos.

What we are basically in is a collection of shady operators who try to buy influence with politicians and pollute the information environment more and more.

This is basically a widespread extortion racket against all of us and we are the factory farmed or wet market animals and some kind of foul ransomware plus an out of control implementation of policing with more bots and geofence warrants and other shady shit..
And these guys want ransomware patches and documentaries and gladiator fights and spectacles and more lousy rubbish nonchoices like - bulk processing versus spectacles.

What we need is more Lina Khan/Bernie Sanders etc. Man..I wish at least the left would wake up thoroughly while there is any time left..
And are conservatives completely asleep?

I don’t set much store by this David Brooks type..but surely there are people like my dad who doesn’t ever see politics that is anti-him when this exposed as okay.

Who could want this rule by billionaire and Reason magazine?
Like these guys at the very top are mostly all a cancer and so many are beholden to them.
They don’t release stuff because they are all so compromised up top often.

Not the younger people thank god. What is with these guys.
But the problem is an asymmetry with the average person where leftists or liberals like me anyway are not going to cover for anyone. And there would be way more people like that left of centre. Whereas on the right, the top is hopeless of course.
It remains to be seen if the average right and conservative person would realize that all dishonest and corrupt people need to held accountable asap. But I suspect that instead it will continue to right shift.

The only solution I personally have is right or “left” if you were in the things I am filing complaints about, I don’t care. I am not covering for any serious wrongdoing.
Transactional == prostitute.

I am in India where it can hopefully be shut down with a criminal lawsuit filed.

I alerted my medical marijuana company and they are pretty straightforward and bright.
That is the difference between a blatantly made up demonized wrong doing with corrupt Reefer Madness malpractitioners piling on and trash sold as “pro immigration” that’s deeply anti-immigrant and undemocratic.

It is the influence of lobbying groups and Cato and Koch types driving this sleazy tech centric brand of “pro immigration” rot.
How does a race to the bottom not hurt immigrants most.

I am posting this and leaving a trail before this entrenches in the Trump 2.0 era. It was consistently undemocratic, unconstitutional trash in India and America and I am not a status quo.

I am not extreme! I am moderate! I am far left and radical green in this damn drivel..
Obama was working in a difficult milieu and he has changed. But in that era that fucking scumbag Larry Summers was considered a democrat. And Zuckerberg and Pichai and these tech creeps used to be as disingenuous as that troglodyte JD Vance.

It is a fiddly business working blind and going by who and when.
Musk and Palantir are relatively knew and a much faster cancer carrying out what probably started entrenching under Google and Facebook and locally Tata and my creepy communist state.
The specifics are bothering me a lot.

It was unambiguously Google and Tata and probably Facebook and my creepy communist state here in India and California..and these things were ongoing (I mean some of wildly illicit ubiquitous computing).

They cannot keep on saying… “we did all these creepy things for so long and got away with it! Why can’t we do even more creepy things!”
It wasn’t good that you ever did creepy things!

It is actually the worst damn argument to say..but things were always creepy!
lol..

I mean yes probably, but that ..

Nothing factual is ever about any side so much as exactly what happened. But they go on about biases without getting their real biases with the pro status quo crowd. They want people who won’t rock the boat.


We are a species that builds complex systems and that point this sort of us v them or more solutionism or hustle..No..

I am not extreme! This is stupid.
These are the dumbest worldviews and arguments ever. It is such a tangled mass of absurdity stupidity avarice greed and creepiness

All these fuckers should be in prison..dammit..
I have a headache..

I am going to file complaints against all the creeps who engaged in the exploitation of technicalities to get away with stuff..
Damn them all..
How do people think like this?
A fucking hell cult spawning everywhere..
Madness..These people are not just evil they are also stupid and..god..they don’t even have any survival instincts.
Fucking lemmings. I protested the stupidity throughout.
A suicidal slow or fast timescale death cult but as it increasingly benefits just about no one..how is this practical?
These people are stupid. Almost fascinatingly stupid..your creeps over in America, our creeps here in India, the creeps in China and Russia and the ME…the creeps in Eastern Europe.

Maybe mass lobotomy is less popular in Western Europe and here in India at least we are staggered in time. So we have a little more time which I will use to signal draconian pushback..the average citizen still has a say..asap and ignoring it further is suicide for them. I refuse to go down with these damn lemmings.

popsdenver

(2,179 posts)
10. A little late now folks
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 05:16 PM
15 hrs ago

Most certainly the info has been sold to countless organizations and corporations that have an interest and use for such informations. Possibly some of the most nefarious Corporations, and creeps around.......

For instance, just look at what Walgreens Rx knew about you, including all your personal information, and for YEARS they made BILLIONS selling the info to everyone and anyone who could pay for it....

Hello everyone.......we are living in a world of: NO MORE SECRETS

AND, anything and everything about you will be used against you, without you even knowing it......

Buddyzbuddy

(2,457 posts)
12. That can and should be treated as a breach of National Security.
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 05:46 PM
14 hrs ago

Anyone not currently authorized in possession, transferring or receiving such information should be charged as such.

It is the U.S. Government's #1 job to protect it's citizens. By giving unauthorized non government personnel access to that information was a failure of the current Administration and should be considered a breach of duty and treated as a crime. IMHO.

The horse may have left the barn but that doesn't mean the idiot's that left the door open should get away Scott free. Nor should any person not authorized trying to rope that horse.

dickthegrouch

(4,473 posts)
15. Time to give us all new identifiers
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 08:06 PM
12 hrs ago

At the personal expense of anyone who knew, or should have known, and said nothing.
And I fully understand how hard that will be, and how long it will take to plan as a flawless operation.
However, those plans should have been on the books for decades now, ever since the "I LOVE YOU" virus was unleashed by the asshole, Mitnick.

mdbl

(8,564 posts)
18. Will anyone EFFING investigate these assholes?
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 08:46 PM
11 hrs ago

Does the FBI give a shit about protecting citizens? Assholes in the GOP Congress don't seem to give a shit.

llmart

(17,547 posts)
21. I thought we already knew that DOGE/Musk had all our SS numbers.
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 09:54 PM
10 hrs ago

It doesn't take much to know that he took them for one reason - to sell to the highest bidder. That has more than likely already happened.

Martin68

(27,562 posts)
22. DOGE was an illegal intelligence and information gathering raid by Elon Musk and his tech bros. Something for everyone!
Tue Mar 10, 2026, 10:05 PM
10 hrs ago

orleans

(36,846 posts)
26. (wapo won't even let me read the gift article without creating an account! fuck them! i'll use the archive website
Wed Mar 11, 2026, 03:33 AM
5 hrs ago

if i want to read the entire piece. and i don't think i cancelled my account with them but i don't want to sign in -- don't remember how to do it. i really need to look for my note on that and cancel them. maybe it could be a fun thing for me to do this weekend.)

thanks for posting this.
here's the archive link: https://archive.is/fux3E

Latest Discussions»Latest Breaking News»Whistleblower claims ex-D...