back to article All right, you can have one: DOGE access to Treasury IT OK'd judge

A federal judge has partly lifted an injunction against Elon Musk's Trump-blessed cost-trimming DOGE unit, allowing one staff member to access sensitive US Treasury payment systems. This access includes personally identifiable financial information tied to millions of Americans. Judge Jeanette Vargas, who issued a preliminary …

  1. Mentat74
    WTF?

    "but only for one DOGE staffer"...

    It only takes one of them to royally fark things up !

  2. Eclectic Man Silver badge

    What is he looking for?

    Is it read-only access or does Wunderley have other rights of access?

    I am assuming that the justification for access to PII is to check on potential fraudulent claims, such as for deceased people, or those who have for whatever reason left the USA and are no longer eligible to claim benefits. Seems like a rather tall order for one person to sift through tens of millions of records.

    1. HuBo Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: What is he looking for?

      Well, I expect he's gonna be running some agentic AI through those Treasury systems, for good measure ... expect yet another major Orange DOGE brownshirt wanker catastrophe, imho!

    2. Someone Else Silver badge

      Re: What is he looking for?

      Seems like a rather tall order for one person to sift through tens of millions of records.

      Well, we would want to assume that this one person would be at least (marginally) qualified to write a proper query (SQL or otherwise) to do the sifting for them. Of course, the quality of that query is where the adventure (and opportunity -- or, given that this is DOG-E, the avenue -- for mischief) happens.

  3. Mitoo Bobsworth Silver badge

    Judge is non-judgemental

    Considering the previous chaos wrought by these sanctioned wreckers, this decision is no more than idiocy wearing a robe.

  4. DS999 Silver badge

    The racist guy who left

    Was welcomed back in the fold the next day when MAGA morons complained that racism shouldn't be disqualifying.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    " Elez was also accused of emailing an unencrypted Treasury database containing people's private information to two Trump administration officials, while rifling through the department's IT systems."

    So basically he was doing *exactly* what he was hired for and got fired *for that*? Also, being a racist is a merit in Trump administration.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ""The government's extensive submissions … largely alleviate those concerns," Vargas wrote in the April decision. "

    This would be funny if it wasn't absolutely pathetic. One person can copy *everything* and deliver it to his masters.

    Also DOGE people will lie anything and any judge actually believing them is an idiot.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Trimming about two percent of that.

    Only managing to find 2% "wasted" spending that can be cut?

    And that is after they've also targeted costs they simply don't like, that don't fit their brand of politics, not just the ones that are being grossly inefficient!

    That isn't a sign of out of control expenditure or systematic corruption and fraud, that is a huge system that is running at a ridiculously high level of efficiency! 98% of their spending is going where they think it should!

    Such spending, much effectiveness. Wow!

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Re: Trimming about two percent of that.

      "98% of their spending is going where they think it should!"

      But not where Trump and his MAGAscists want to to go, that is their offence. It is going to the needy, the poor, and (whisper it) the democrat voters.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Trimming about two percent of that.

      Only managing to find 2% "wasted" spending that can be cut?

      You're assuming that DOGE are competent at finding wasted spending and actually have a clue what they're doing. That's a bold assumption.

  8. rgjnk Silver badge
    Alert

    NLRB

    I thought the full NLRB story was the more interesting one, even if the reports studiously avoided looking too hard at the very obvious reasons His Muskness had for sneaking all that data out the back door.

    The majority of these activities look less about the 'official' purpose of DOGE and more about how Musk has been let loose to serve himself.

    1. Someone Else Silver badge

      Re: NLRB

      The majority of these activities look less about the 'official' purpose of DOGE and more about how Musk has been let loose to serve himself.

      And here all this time I thought that Musk serving himself was the official purpose of DOG-E.

      "I'm shocked...shocked...to find there is gambling going on in this establishment!"

  9. ColinPa Silver badge

    Sensitive data

    Of course if sensitive data is encrypted - like name, ss, dob and address - send them the data but without the decryption keys.

  10. ecofeco Silver badge
    FAIL

    Insanity

    For those who don't understand the gravity of this, let's just say it's a coup level problem.

  11. Eclectic Man Silver badge
    Trollface

    I wonder

    And to mis-quote Alan Bennett, it is probably not a pensée Pascal ever had, whether one of Trump's advisers is tasked with building up a list of 'people to be pardoned before the next presidential election (if there ever is one)'. Because what is almost certainly the illegal exfiltration of personal data and government data in insecure ways to insecure, private and commercial systems is involving quite a lot of people already (and we are less than three months in POTUS 47's term, folks). I mean they should not worry, Trump has shown his readiness to sign loads of documents every day as Executive Orders, but they just might want to make sure that their name is on one of them.

    Troll icon, 'coz I bet there isn't.

  12. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Slimey individual

    "President Trump's éminence grease Elon Musk"

  13. S C

    It's like we're watching the prologue to any number of different post-crisis/apocalypse stories - Handmaid's Tale, The Wild Shore, the Sprawl trilogy, Fallout, Civil War, and so on.

    The sheer breadth of data exfiltration and obfuscation across the Fed, as written in that NPR story, it makes me think that 'Project 2025' is just one shoe of a pair - and the other shoe will drop by the end of Trump's current term - except it may have become illegal to publish a story about it by that time.

    Good luck to you all, and to the rest of us - I hope the world survives the little prick.

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