The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told federal lawmakers on Friday that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have seized control of a number of federal computer systems that house data tightly restricted under federal statutes. In some cases, any deviations in the manner in which the data is being used may be not only illegal, the ACLU says, but unconstitutional.
DOGE operatives have infiltrated or assumed control of a number of federal agencies that are responsible for managing personnel files on nearly 2 million federal employees, as well as offices that supply the government with a broad range of software and information technology services.
Unauthorized use of sensitive or personally identifiable data as part of an effort to purge the government of ideologically unaligned staff may constitute a violation of federal law. The Privacy Act and the Federal Information Security Modernization Act strictly prohibit, for instance, unauthorized access and use of government personnel data.
In a letter to members of several congressional oversight committees, ACLU attorneys highlighted DOGE’s access to Treasury systems that handle a “majority” of federal payments, which includes details on Social Security benefits, tax refunds, and salaries. Citing WIRED reporting from Tuesday, the attorneys note that, in addition to choking off funding to specific agencies or individuals, this grants DOGE access to “troves of personal information,” including “millions of Social Security numbers, bank accounts, business finances, and personal finances.”
The attorneys write: “Access to—and abuse of—that information could harm millions of people. Young engineers, with no experience in human resources, governmental benefits, or legal requirements around privacy have gained unprecedented surveillance over payments to federal employees, Social Security recipients, and small businesses—and with it, control over those payments.”
The ACLU attorneys stress that, under normal circumstances, these systems would fall under the control of career civil servants with years of training and experience in managing sensitive data, all of whom survived a comprehensive vetting process.
The group has also filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the communications records of identified DOGE personnel, as well as for details of any requests the task force may have made for access to sensitive and personal data at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Other files the ACLU seeks pertain to DOGE’s plans to deploy artificial intelligence tools across the government, as well as any plans or discussions about how the task force plans to conform to the litany of federal laws safeguarding sensitive financial and medical information, such as the the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
WIRED first reported Thursday that DOGE operatives at the General Services Administration, which manages the US government’s IT infrastructure, had begun pushing to rapidly deploy a homebrew AI chatbot called “GSAi.” A source with knowledge of GSA’s prior dealings with AI tells WIRED that the agency launched a pilot program last fall aimed at testing the use of Gemini, a chatbot adapted for Google Workplace. DOGE quickly determined, however, that Gemini would not provide the level of data desired by the task force.