Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks Data Access | Hacker News Reader

Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks Data Access

nytimes.com

36 points2OEH8eoCRo026 comments

When Musk accessed the Treasury department data, people here gaslit themselves into it making sense by saying "he needs to see where the money is being sent out!" So why does he need access to social security information? On top of there being no reason for him having it, there is no oversight into what he is doing with it. My guesses are both blackmail and feeding it into his companies' AI. Perhaps for targeting if you wanna get really conspiratorial?

Read only access would be required to find potential fraud. Everyone here has been saying the millions of database records of Social Security people potentially collecting benefits between the ages of 100-150 is just a COBOL programming deal... but what if it is not? We should check.

There is no reason to expect that he will have read-only access given that he and his team had write access to the Treasury data. Social security fraud also has to be less than .2% of spending. Is this really worth wasting time on? Doesn't sound like the Department of Government Efficiency is being very time efficient.

If they catch his team copying the data, he should literally be executed. Otherwise, audit on..

i don’t want him even seeing the data, sorry. audit through the normal channels. or, failing that, go after the pentagon where the real fraud (and savings) are.

They already caught his team copying Treasury data onto a private server.

Good point.

First we should check if you're an American because otherwise you shouldn't be able to help us check.

Please post your Social Security number, Name, Mother's Madien Name, and last 4 of each of your Credit Cards.

pretty sure we already had auditors. this is something else.

Yeah it sure is looking like that to a non-American like me, looking for witch hunt ammo on political opponents, sure the government makes a lot of social security payment and salaries I doubt there is widespread fraud or improrietry there, worse is if you mess all that plumbing up legit social payments and salaries are going get impacted, these are things that should not done by "move fast and break things" approach. But what about other massive government procurement from corporations and overcharging?

Hasn't Musk said that he found 150+ year old people receiving social security? It seems like the answer is obvious if you look for it.

First, Musk is a liar and is often wrong or stretching the truth. You can find out about that here: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-doge-social-security-1...

Second, even if he is telling the truth, that is .000001% of the US budget. An extreme waste of time to hunt after it.

Okay now I'm confused. I just read "In 2023, Social Security was responsible for $106 billion in deficits, or 6 percent of the entire federal budget deficit".

I'm talking about social security fraud specifically which is what the above post is talking about when mentioning people aged 150 claiming benefits.

Should hold the line instead

They can't- Musk is empowered to fire leaders of agencies that refuse to work with DOGE. It's comply or leave- and if you leave, they will just find a lackey who will comply.

It's better to be fired. That way no one can make excuses that they left willingly.

That sounds pretty entitled.

Nobody will help them "hold the line". The damage to them personally would be immense. If you have a family, or any other responsibilities (like your own health and well-being) there's only one wise thing to do: leave.

At the end, only surviving counts.

They're resigning at the point they would be fired anyway.

It's not entitlement, it's doing the right thing for as long as you can.

I know in the private sector if fired you can pretty much lie if ever asked and odds are no one will find out.

Probably different for government jobs. They will know if you've been fired from a government job. And once you are institutionalized as a beauracrat it can be hard to work elsewhere. You would basically be restarting your career from scratch.

And if they know, so what? The mere fact of being fired for doing the right thing will wreck your life?

Honestly, the very idea of a part of the executive branch dedicated to auditing the other parts and departments of the executive branch is just preposterous. We have Congress comittees for that, thank you very much.

Have they ever, in known history, done any of that in any manner one could call effective?

Congress is a pile of squabbling children and has been at least my entire lifetime.

they suck but it’s better than this shit—don’t tell me you believe Elon

he isn’t actually empowered tho?

practically speaking, yes? Because it looks like he's done that several times now, and the US Marshalls (and the President) are backing him up.

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