Kudos on this this huge informative message. Let me add to the DOGE shitstorm:
In a whistleblower disclosure filed with Congress and corroborated by internal documents, NPR reports, Berulis said that the DOGE employees first set up a process to hide their activities on the servers, rather than allowing account activity to be tracked. This alone is a “red flag,” cybersecurity experts said, and a technique mimicking what a malicious hacker may use when trying to infiltrate government systems.
Berulis noticed soon after the raid began that a DOGE engineer was working on a “backdoor” to the NLRB’s case management system, which would allow the rogue group to extract information surreptitiously. Then, he saw within the system’s metrics that there was a massive spike in data being extracted from the network and sent to an unknown location that could contain a huge amount of case information.
Trump Is Trying to Axe Collective Bargaining for 1 Million Federal Employees
The IT worker first spoke out internally against the DOGE raid — but when he did, his attorney has said, someone taped a threatening note to his door that contained sensitive personal information about him, as well as pictures of him walking his dog that looked like they were taken by a drone. Whistleblowers have long faced threats to their personal safety, while recent high-profile cases of corporate whistleblowers have created a culture of fear around the practice.
Meanwhile, the information exfiltrated by DOGE includes a huge amount of sensitive information about American workers, including “ongoing contested labor cases, lists of union activists, internal case notes, personal information from Social Security numbers to home addresses, proprietary corporate data and more information that never gets published openly,” NPR wrote.
In other words, as labor experts said, DOGE may have gotten its hands on the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of labor organizers across the country — at a time when President Donald Trump and Republicans are preparing to majorly dismantle labor protections and attack workers’ rights, including unionization.
It also comes from rogue actors assembled by Musk — whose companies are involved in numerous labor disputes. This includes an alarming lawsuit, filed by SpaceX, challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB itself, which is the primary entity in the U.S. protecting workers from labor abuses.
Even if that data isn’t being actively used by Musk and his cronies, labor experts said that the fact that they can access it may have a chilling effect on the labor movement, just after it has seen a major resurgence in recent years.
“Just saying that they have access to the data is intimidating,” Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of labor education research for Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and co-director of the Worker Empowerment Research Network, told NPR. “People are going to go, ‘I’m not going to testify before the board because, you know, my employer might get access.’”
The extreme, malicious techniques used by DOGE to infiltrate the system, meanwhile, could also leave this data vulnerable to being seized by other bad faith actors. At one point just minutes after DOGE accessed the systems, for instance, employees noticed log-in attempts from an IP address located in Russia — attempts that used a newly-created DOGE account with the correct username and password.
Thank you so much, Gabe, for a terrific newsletter. If you ever have to choose between a good newsletter published on time and an excellent one published a day or more later, by all means choose the latter.
One of the few lasting legacies of DOGE may be in the successful effort to reduce the federal workforce through intimidation and buyouts. Agencies experienced significant attrition and now have a massive reduction in expertise and administrative capacity that will be very difficult to repair. I fear people's collective short memories will forget what DOGE did to hollow agencies out, and they'll nod along when Elon's spiritual successors point to examples of agency dysfunction (caused by that lack of expertise and capacity) as reason why the federal government doesn't work and should be cur
One thing that a lot of folks may have missed is the massive damage that Trump has created between the United States and the International community. This damage, this destruction of trust, will take decades to rebuild - if it’s even possible for that to happen.
Thank you, Mr. Fleischer. The point here is that all the destruction or temporary interruption affects the middle and lower classes. The oligarch clsss just marches blithely on stuffing our tax dollars into their coffers.
One last thing. I have said having been in successful companies in corporate America and been a recruiter all trump and musk’s stuff was completely wrong if you wanted to make something more efficient
Gabe, you are 110% right. It is about process and I will add proper analysis. It is going to turn out the whole thing was about getting a data base
Seems the outsized* military budget, with its notorious $500 hammers and ludicrous toilet prices was the most effective way for DOGE to start eliminating swampy waste.
Process has been the necessary ingredient in government since Nixon and Watergate. Process actually does matter, a lot more than most people either would think or like to believe.
Thanks so much for this - it's hard to have aggregated data on the sweep of activities under DOGE. One correction: State Humanities' Councils congressionally appropriated funds were not reinstated by the National Endowment for the Humanities after being terminated by DOGE in April of last year. There is a lawsuit underway and Councils (in every state and territory) have yet to be made whole. Keep up the good work - much appreciated.
I recommended a book on Presidents’ Day. George Boutwell, radical Republican. Almost an essential read
I have started one, “JFK and the Unspeakable…..” by James Douglass. I have been an assassination follower for almost 60 years. This book goes a lot deeper than anything I have ever read. Yes it covers details but it also gets into deep spiritual truths
Gabe, long but a keeper. I never understood the cutting of VOA. Their message has always been very pro democracy. Now I understand. Trump and Musk don’t like that message
Interesting how valuable it all of a sudden became with Iran
Kudos on this this huge informative message. Let me add to the DOGE shitstorm:
In a whistleblower disclosure filed with Congress and corroborated by internal documents, NPR reports, Berulis said that the DOGE employees first set up a process to hide their activities on the servers, rather than allowing account activity to be tracked. This alone is a “red flag,” cybersecurity experts said, and a technique mimicking what a malicious hacker may use when trying to infiltrate government systems.
Berulis noticed soon after the raid began that a DOGE engineer was working on a “backdoor” to the NLRB’s case management system, which would allow the rogue group to extract information surreptitiously. Then, he saw within the system’s metrics that there was a massive spike in data being extracted from the network and sent to an unknown location that could contain a huge amount of case information.
Trump Is Trying to Axe Collective Bargaining for 1 Million Federal Employees
The IT worker first spoke out internally against the DOGE raid — but when he did, his attorney has said, someone taped a threatening note to his door that contained sensitive personal information about him, as well as pictures of him walking his dog that looked like they were taken by a drone. Whistleblowers have long faced threats to their personal safety, while recent high-profile cases of corporate whistleblowers have created a culture of fear around the practice.
Meanwhile, the information exfiltrated by DOGE includes a huge amount of sensitive information about American workers, including “ongoing contested labor cases, lists of union activists, internal case notes, personal information from Social Security numbers to home addresses, proprietary corporate data and more information that never gets published openly,” NPR wrote.
In other words, as labor experts said, DOGE may have gotten its hands on the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of labor organizers across the country — at a time when President Donald Trump and Republicans are preparing to majorly dismantle labor protections and attack workers’ rights, including unionization.
It also comes from rogue actors assembled by Musk — whose companies are involved in numerous labor disputes. This includes an alarming lawsuit, filed by SpaceX, challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB itself, which is the primary entity in the U.S. protecting workers from labor abuses.
Even if that data isn’t being actively used by Musk and his cronies, labor experts said that the fact that they can access it may have a chilling effect on the labor movement, just after it has seen a major resurgence in recent years.
“Just saying that they have access to the data is intimidating,” Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of labor education research for Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and co-director of the Worker Empowerment Research Network, told NPR. “People are going to go, ‘I’m not going to testify before the board because, you know, my employer might get access.’”
The extreme, malicious techniques used by DOGE to infiltrate the system, meanwhile, could also leave this data vulnerable to being seized by other bad faith actors. At one point just minutes after DOGE accessed the systems, for instance, employees noticed log-in attempts from an IP address located in Russia — attempts that used a newly-created DOGE account with the correct username and password.
Thank you so much, Gabe, for a terrific newsletter. If you ever have to choose between a good newsletter published on time and an excellent one published a day or more later, by all means choose the latter.
One of the few lasting legacies of DOGE may be in the successful effort to reduce the federal workforce through intimidation and buyouts. Agencies experienced significant attrition and now have a massive reduction in expertise and administrative capacity that will be very difficult to repair. I fear people's collective short memories will forget what DOGE did to hollow agencies out, and they'll nod along when Elon's spiritual successors point to examples of agency dysfunction (caused by that lack of expertise and capacity) as reason why the federal government doesn't work and should be cur
*cut
One thing that a lot of folks may have missed is the massive damage that Trump has created between the United States and the International community. This damage, this destruction of trust, will take decades to rebuild - if it’s even possible for that to happen.
Thank you, Mr. Fleischer. The point here is that all the destruction or temporary interruption affects the middle and lower classes. The oligarch clsss just marches blithely on stuffing our tax dollars into their coffers.
One last thing. I have said having been in successful companies in corporate America and been a recruiter all trump and musk’s stuff was completely wrong if you wanted to make something more efficient
Gabe, you are 110% right. It is about process and I will add proper analysis. It is going to turn out the whole thing was about getting a data base
Thanks for addressing this Gabe! Regular media covers when all these things are "announced" but rarely follows up on what actually happens afterwards.
Worth the wait!
Seems the outsized* military budget, with its notorious $500 hammers and ludicrous toilet prices was the most effective way for DOGE to start eliminating swampy waste.
*relative to everywhere else on the planet
Process has been the necessary ingredient in government since Nixon and Watergate. Process actually does matter, a lot more than most people either would think or like to believe.
Thanks so much for this - it's hard to have aggregated data on the sweep of activities under DOGE. One correction: State Humanities' Councils congressionally appropriated funds were not reinstated by the National Endowment for the Humanities after being terminated by DOGE in April of last year. There is a lawsuit underway and Councils (in every state and territory) have yet to be made whole. Keep up the good work - much appreciated.
Gabe, I like your experiment of fewer posts, but more in-depth ones.
I recommended a book on Presidents’ Day. George Boutwell, radical Republican. Almost an essential read
I have started one, “JFK and the Unspeakable…..” by James Douglass. I have been an assassination follower for almost 60 years. This book goes a lot deeper than anything I have ever read. Yes it covers details but it also gets into deep spiritual truths
Gabe, long but a keeper. I never understood the cutting of VOA. Their message has always been very pro democracy. Now I understand. Trump and Musk don’t like that message
Interesting how valuable it all of a sudden became with Iran