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Top Social Security Official Quits as DOGE Seeks Access to Our Private Records [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-17
The top official at the Social Security Administration stepped down this weekend after members of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency sought access to sensitive personal data about millions of Americans.
This is frightening. Like most seniors I rely upon Social Security to survive. To have to live in fear at this point in our lives is an abomination and it’s beyond belief that we are being subjected to terror like this.
Others who rely upon Social Security suffer from disabilities. They often rely as well upon Medicare or Medicaid, and they do not need to be threatened like this on top of everything else they’re dealing with.
The resignation of Michelle King, the acting commissioner, is the latest abrupt departure of a senior federal official who refused to provide Mr. Musk’s lieutenants with access to closely held data. Mr. Musk’s team has been embedding with agencies across the federal government and seeking access to private data as part of what it has said is an effort to root out fraud and waste.
If they are looking for “fraud and waste” they can start with Mr. Blows Up Rockets and brags about how he threw USAID into the wood chipper. That in itself is monstrous and people around the world are suffering, food is rotting, farmers here will suffer, rare animals will die or even become extinct because USAID also helps conservation efforts globally.
Meanwhile, where is Congress? Has anybody seen or heard from Congress lately? Are they still alive? Maybe they are on Mars.
And, there’s very little waste and fraud in the first place!
Social Security payments account for about $1.5 trillion, or a fifth, of annual federal spending in the United States. President Trump has pledged not to enact cuts to the program’s retirement benefits, but he has indicated that he is willing to look for ways to cut wasteful or improper spending from the retirement program that pays benefits to millions of Americans. An audit produced by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general last year found that from 2015 to 2022, the agency paid almost $8.6 trillion in benefits and made approximately $71.8 billion, or less than 1 percent, in improper payments that usually involved recipients getting too much money.
So. Why exactly do these unelected barbarians need access to this data? It may include, like the IRS data, access to Social Security numbers, bank accounts, and even medical records.
For god’s sake why are they doing this to the American people?
You know, we warned people. They didn’t listen. So many Americans didn’t even bother to vote.
Damn.
www.nytimes.com/...
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