{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-wyden-demand-update-on-doge-infiltration-of-the-social-security-administration/", "Whitehouse, Wyden Demand Update on DOGE Infiltration of the Social Security Administration", "2026-07-24", "2026", "2026-07", "Democrat", "Senate", "RI", "Sheldon Whitehouse", "W000802", "www.whitehouse.senate.gov", "whitehouse", "https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release", "scraper", "Trump put Americans\u2019 sensitive private data at risk\n\nWashington, DC \u2013 U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano urging the SSA to finally detail the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency\u2019s (DOGE) activities at the Social Security Administration amid public reporting and whistleblower declarations revealing that DOGE personnel received unauthorized access to American\u2019s sensitive personal data.\n\n\u201cWe write seeking meaningful transparency regarding the handling of various information security risks involving staff from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency at the Social Security Administration and to follow up on inadequate responses to prior Congressional inquiries on these matters,\u201d wrote Whitehouse and Wyden. \u201cOver the past fourteen months, we have repeatedly sought basic information about DOGE\u2019s activities at SSA. Your responses have either been unresponsive or later disproved by SSA\u2019s own admissions.\u201d\n\nWhitehouse, Wyden and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) first wrote to Commissioner Bisignano in November 2025 urging the SSA to take all appropriate steps to guarantee that DOGE\u2019s actions did not American seniors exposed to identity theft, fraud, or other risks. In a later Department of Justice (DOJ) court filing, the federal government disclosed that DOGE staffers shared sensitive data on a third-party server \u2013 without the knowledge of SSA officials \u2013 and shared data with an outside political group. The Washington Post reported in March on a whistleblower disclosure claiming a DOGE employee copied a database of highly sensitive SSA data on a personal thumb drive to share with his new private sector employer.\n\n\u201cThese admissions and whistleblower statements damage SSA\u2019s decades-long history of protecting Americans\u2019 sensitive information and discredit your past assurances to protect Americans\u2019 data. It is long overdue you provide the American people a straight answer,\u201d concluded the senators.\n\nThe DOGE infiltration of SSA and other administrative agencies posed substantial risks to Americans\u2019 data and wellbeing. New reporting in the Washington Post found that at least two dozen former DOGE staffers remain embedded in the Trump administration, many of whom have been handed key national security or data security positions. Vulnerabilities and bugs left behind in these systems could put Americans at risk of getting scammed, hacked, or even spied on by foreign governments.\n\nLast July, Whitehouse, Wyden, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced the Pick Up After Your DOGE Act, legislation requiring a comprehensive audit of federal agency computer systems and networks accessed by DOGE staff. Without a proper and total review of security vulnerabilities, the risk remains that Donald Trump\u2019s Big Tech and AI allies are given unfettered access to a massive trove of Americans\u2019 data by former DOGE employees to enrich themselves and undermine their competitors.\n\nA PDF of the letter is available here and the text of the letter is below.\n\nJuly 22, 2026\n\nThe Honorable Frank Bisignano\n\nCommissioner\n\nSocial Security Administration\n\n6401 Security Blvd.\n\nBaltimore, MD 21235\n\nDear Commissioner Bisignano:\n\nWe write seeking meaningful transparency regarding the handling of various information security risks involving staff from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the Social Security Administration (SSA) and to follow up on inadequate responses to prior Congressional inquiries on these matters.\n\nOver the past fourteen months, we have repeatedly sought basic information about DOGE\u2019s activities at SSA.[1] Your responses have either been unresponsive or later disproved by SSA\u2019s own admissions.\n\nDuring your confirmation hearing, you committed to Senator Whitehouse to conduct a total review of SSA\u2019s databases and security protocols to ensure Americans\u2019 data is protected. In November 2025, we wrote seeking an update on your promised audit of SSA\u2019s systems for vulnerabilities left behind by DOGE.[2] Rather than providing the findings of an audit, your January 6, 2026 response simply offered the assurance that \u201cSSA\u2019s systems and data are secure and managed under strict security protocols, consistent with Federal and industry standards\u201d and asserted that \u201cneither the Numident database nor any of its data has been accessed, leaked, hacked, or shared in any unauthorized manner.\u201d[3]\n\nYour assurance lasted all of a few days. In a January 16 court filing \u2013 ten days later \u2013 the Department of Justice (DOJ) disclosed that DOGE employees at SSA failed to comply with a federal district court order and may have violated multiple federal and agency data privacy and security policies.[4] Specifically, DOGE employees at SSA shared data via Cloudflare \u2013 a third-party server that was not approved for Social Security data \u2013 without the knowledge of agency officials.[5] Additionally, a DOGE staffer transmitted an encrypted file that DHS believed to contain the names and addresses of approximately 1,000 individuals drawn from SSA systems to DOGE affiliates outside the agency.[6] To date, SSA has yet to determine with certainty what data was shared in either case.\n\nMost disturbingly, DOJ disclosed in the court filing that a member of SSA\u2019s DOGE team signed a \u201cVoter Data Agreement,\u201d in his capacity as an SSA employee, with a still unnamed political advocacy group that explicitly sought to use SSA data to challenge election results in certain states.[7] SSA rightly recognized the seriousness of this allegation, prompting two referrals to the Office of Special Counsel for possible Hatch Act violations.[8] However, despite repeated requests from Congress, SSA has refused to provide unredacted information related to these complaints, instead providing heavily redacted documents. SSA\u2019s lack of transparency on this matter is made all the more concerning as President Trump continues to double down on dangerous election conspiracy theories heading into the November midterms.[9]\n\nIn March 2026, The Washington Post reported on a whistleblower complaint regarding a former DOGE software engineer who had unfettered access to two tightly restricted databases of Americans\u2019 personal information. According to the complaint, the individual copied at least one of those databases onto a personal thumb drive and planned to upload the data to his new job\u2019s databases for its own use.[10] This complaint follows a separate one filed in June 2025 by Charles Borges, SSA\u2019s former chief data officer, who alleged that DOGE staff had uploaded a copy of the Numident database to a cloud environment lacking appropriate oversight.[11] We again wrote to you asking for information about your promised forensic audit of DOGE staff\u2019s activity at the agency in March 2026, and again, your reply failed to respond to the inquiries made in our letter.[12]\n\nThese admissions and whistleblower statements damage SSA\u2019s decades-long history of protecting Americans\u2019 sensitive information and discredit your past assurances to protect Americans\u2019 data. It is long overdue you provide the American people a straight answer. In light of the developments described above, we ask that you provide written responses to our outstanding questions we previously sent to you no later than July 31, 2026:\n\nFrom our March 24, 2026 Letter:\n\nHas SSA conducted a full forensic audit of all devices, accounts, and external transfer mechanisms\u2014including thumb drives, personal email, Cloudflare, and other third-party services\u2014used by DOGE personnel during their tenure at the agency? If so, please provide a copy of the audit report. If not, why not, and when will such an audit be completed?\n\nHas SSA determined whether any of the data allegedly exfiltrated has been accessed, used, shared, or sold by the former DOGE employee or any third party? What steps is SSA taking to retrieve or contain that data?\n\nHave you requested the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the allegations made by the whistleblower? If not, why not?\n\nFrom our November 21, 2025 Letter:\n\nWe respectfully ask that you provide:\n\nAn update on your review of SSA databases and IT systems;\n\nA description of any vulnerabilities, breaches, or irregularities that audit has revealed;\n\nThe steps SSA has taken to mitigate any risks created by DOGE\u2019s activities; and\n\nA timeline for completing any outstanding reviews or corrective actions.\n\nWe appreciate your attention to these matters and look forward to a substantive response to each of the questions above.\n\n###\n\n[1] Letter from Senator Gillibrand et al. to Acting Commissioner Dudek (April 8, 2025); Letter from Senator Warren et al. to Acting Commissioner Dudek (April 23, 2025); Letter from Senator Gillibrand et al. to Commissioner Bisignano (June 23, 2025); Letter from Senator Whitehouse et al. to Commissioner Bisignano (November 21, 2025).\n\n[2] Letter from Senator Whitehouse et al. to Commissioner Bisignano (November 21, 2025).\n\n[3] Letter from Commissioner Bisignano to Senator Whitehouse et al. (January 6, 2026).\n\n[4] Notice of Corrections to the Record at 5, AFSCME v. Social Security Administration, No. 25-cv-00596-ELH (D. Md. Jan. 16, 2026), https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26496273/doge.pdf.\n\n[5] Id at 6.\n\n[6] Id at 3.\n\n[7] Id at 5.\n\n[8] Id.\n\n[9] David E. Sanger and Dustin Volz, \u201cTrump Promised Proof of Election Tampering. His Document Release Fell Far Short,\u201d The New York Times (July 17, 2026), https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/us/politics/trump-election-tampering-document-release.html\n\n[10] Meryl Kornfield, Elizabeth Dwoskin, and Lisa Rein, \u201cWhistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job,\u201d The Washington Post (Mar. 10, 2026), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/10/social-security-data-breach-doge-2/\n\n[11] Nicholas Nehamas, \u201cDOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says,\u201d The New York Times (August 26, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/us/politics/doge-social-security-data.html?eafs_enabled=false", 1, "2026-07-25T07:13:44Z", "2026-07-25T07:15:09Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-wyden-demand-update-on-doge-infiltration-of-the-social-security-administration/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.7628520037978888, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}