Tag: Social Security Administration

Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek admits retaliating against Maine for Gov. Mills defying Trump on trans athletes, suspending state’s birth and death registration programs

Portland Press Herald: Social Security official ended program for Maine newborns because he was ‘ticked’ at Mills (archive) (2024-03-25):

The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration admitted this week that he specifically targeted Maine after watching Gov. Janet Mills clash with President Donald Trump during an event at the White House.

“I was ticked at the governor of Maine for not being real cordial to the president,” Lee Dudek told the New York Times.

Dudek directed the agency to cancel a decades-old program that allows parents to register their newborns for a social security number while at hospitals.

The mandate only applied to Maine and required new parents to show up at a Social Security office in person to register their newborns.

The change was rescinded one day later after an outcry from Maine and criticism from the state’s congressional delegation. A similar program to end electronic death records also targeted Maine and was quickly reversed. […]

Dudek issued an apology when he rescinded the order, although he never provided an explanation for the abrupt change or for the reversal.

“I screwed up. I’ll admit I screwed up,” Dudek told the Times this week. […]

Dudek said he made the decision after watching a testy exchange between Mills and Trump at the National Governors Association dinner in February.

In the February dust-up, Trump told Mills she had better change the state’s policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports or the state would not get any federal funding.

When Mills answered that she was following state and federal laws, Trump said, “We are the federal law.” Mills replied, “See you in court.”

Analysis

This is a clear example of a White House-selected acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Leland Dudek, retaliating against an entire state of mostly cis people by interfering with their SSA systems in a wholly unrelated manner, in reaction to a state leader challenging the president on his anti-trans policy. Dudek admits this response was inappropriate and he knows it. How do we know that other acts of inappropriate retaliation by the Social Security Administration against US residents, based on our policy disagreements with Trump on trans issues, won’t happen again?

Republicans on Musk’s Social Security comments: Stop talking now

NBC News: Trump allies press the White House to dial back Elon Musk’s media interviews over his Social Security jabs (2025-03-23):

After his election, Donald Trump told NBC News that “we’re not touching Social Security,” other than to make it more efficient. But Elon Musk, who now wields enormous power in his role cutting government spending, has recently made comments critical of the program that are coming into conflict with Trump’s promise and worrying members of the president’s own party.

Those concerns have prompted some Trump allies to question whether the billionaire should continue to do so many media interviews, four people familiar with the matter told NBC News.

A particularly problematic remark came during Musk’s conversation with media personality Joe Rogan in late February, in which he described Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” A couple of weeks later, the billionaire once again went after Social Security, this time in an interview with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. Musk, when discussing entitlement spending he deemed wasteful or fraudulent, said the program was “the big one to eliminate.” […]

A Trump adviser acknowledged that they were aware of “outside concern” around Musk’s comments. Trump allies — including some on Wall Street, in corporate America and Congress — have conveyed to the White House and even the president directly that Musk either has to be taken off air or needs to be more scripted. […]

The Democratic firm Blueprint tested 20 different political messages about Musk, and the four that were most “concerning” to registered voters were all about Social Security. The top two were about Musk’s proposals to fire Social Security Administration employees and dismantle phone services. By contrast, voters said the messages least concerning to them were about his personal life, such as Musk fathering children with five different women. The survey was conducted last week and released Thursday. […]

But the former official said Trump may be more amenable to tweaks that can be sold as eliminating waste, fraud and abuse — a sentiment the president hinted at in falsely asserting to a joint session of Congress that millions of dead people are receiving Social Security checks. That assertion came after Musk promoted similar misinformation online. The billionaire White House adviser has also claimed hundreds of billions of dollars in Social Security payments are being funneled to undocumented immigrants — framing that could appeal to Trump.

Musk’s promise to cut $1 trillion to $2 trillion in federal spending is virtually impossible without touching entitlement spending. And while Trump insists he wants to root out fraud, that’s unlikely to dent the program’s spending. The Social Security inspector general found that improper payments from fiscal year 2015 to 2022 totaled less than 1% of benefits paid over that time — and most of those were overpayments. […]

This person noted that elderly Social Security recipients who might not be tech-savvy and live far from a Social Security office are going to be most affected by the changes.

“It’s going to prevent people from getting their benefits,” this person said, adding that the effort amounts to “a very stealthy, very covert hostile takeover.” […]

Altman said giving Musk’s “DOGE teenagers and 20-year-olds in control of the Social Security Administration” access to seniors’ personal data creates data safety concerns that leave the program vulnerable to hackers and scammers — “a con artist’s dream,” she said. She argued that new rules requiring in-person office visits to register could mean that seniors who are disabled or immobile don’t end up getting benefits. And she warned that the removal of Social Security Administration workers will lead to weaker customer service and longer wait times for benefits.

Rolling Stone: Insiders warn DOGE and Trump, Musk, or US enemies could use Social Security data to target trans people and political opponents

Rolling Stone: Nightmare Scenarios: Why DOGE Having Your Social Security Data Is Dangerous (archive) (2025-03-21):

When Mike Russo entered Social Security Administration headquarters on January 31, he introduced himself to agency staff as a representative of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to court filings.

Along with Akash Bobba, a 22-year-old former Meta and Palantir intern, Russo demanded sweeping access to data on every person in the United States with a Social Security number. Social Security Administration (SSA) insiders warn the sharing of this data puts Americans at risk of identity fraud — and that it could be used by Donald Trump’s administration to punish, threaten, or blackmail his political enemies, both at home and abroad. […]

Two SSA insiders warn the potential for misuse of this data is virtually endless: The agency data could be used by hostile foreign governments to locate defectors and political dissidents inside the United States; officials in DOGE and the Trump administration itself could theoretically use the data to threaten elected officials and journalists, among other political foes, or create databases of transgender Americans and citizens who were born in other countries.

The data given to DOGE includes the addresses, medical and work histories, tax, banking and citizenship information, benefit amounts, and family records of every person in the United States with a Social Security number or who has applied for benefits. DOGE officials were granted access to this data over the objections of Flick and former Social Security Commissioner Michelle King, who resigned in protest over the episode. Despite the pushback, DOGE was able to access the data thanks, in part, to Dudek, who has become key to DOGE’s work inside the agency. […]

Insiders and agency veterans worry that the data DOGE has access to isn’t secure, and could be stolen or hacked by the “bad actors” that Flick mentioned in her deposition. One source close to the agency tells Rolling Stone they worried that foreign governments could use the data to locate defectors or political dissidents within the United States. The source also expressed concern that terrorist organizations could use the data to find foreign nationals who have aided the U.S. military and intelligence community in fighting in the Middle East. Another source warned that law enforcement and intelligence sources living in witness protection could be exposed by the data, as well as everyday Americans who could be viewed by Musk and the Trump administration as political enemies.

Some of those perceived enemies could include transgender Americans, according to Zinnia Jones, a transgender activist and researcher. Jones warned that the SSA data could be used to “identify nearly all likely transgender people in the US with 99 percent confidence.” Jones cited a 2015 U.S. Census Bureau study that utilized the same SSA data accessed by DOGE to estimate the number of trans Americans.

“For all we know, they may already know about the possibility of doing this and it’s part of why they insisted so forcefully on full access” to the data, Jones tells Rolling Stone. In her deposition, Flick noted that Bobba requested and was eventually given access to the SSA’s full dataset, “including source code.”

A former federal employee speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution agreed with Jones’ assessment, telling Rolling Stone that the Trump administration could use the SSA data — as well as agency hiring paperwork and passport applications — to identify and purge transgender employees from the government.

And yesterday’s memorandum opinion in American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO v. Social Security Administration, 1:25-cv-00596 (D. Maryland, Mar. 20, 2025), ECF No. 49:

Plaintiffs’ members do not know if their information has been viewed or documented by any of these employees, nor how many times it has been viewed or will continue to be viewed in the coming hours, days, weeks, or months. But, plaintiffs know their sensitive, personally identifiable information is accessible to the DOGE Team on a daily basis, with no proper justification. […]

To facilitate the expedition, SSA provided members of the SSA DOGE Team with unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans, including but not limited to Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers’ license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates, and home and work addresses. […]

In my view, plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that such action is arbitrary and capricious, and in violation of the Privacy Act and the APA. Plaintiffs have also demonstrated that their members will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a TRO, the equities tip in their favor, and the TRO serves the public interest.

Meanwhile, from Mother Jones: Tesla’s in Trouble. Elon Blames… Trans People? (2025-03-20):

Unsurprisingly, Musk ran with the fact that some of the people charged with the Tesla vandalism may be gender non-conforming, suggesting that it pointed to a larger phenomenon of violence perpetrated by trans people. “What are the statistics on trans violence?” Musk asked in his repost of Insurrectionist Barbie’s post. Ever the dilettante, Musk quickly answered his own question — with more of the baseless transphobia he has long spewed on his platform. “The probability of a trans person being violent appears to be vastly higher than non-trans,” Musk falsely claimed. “Hormone injections cause extreme emotional volatility. That is simply a fact.” […]

Musk’s latest transphobic tirade came on the same day that his estranged trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, was profiled in Teen Vogue — and she’s not giving her dad, or his unhinged X posts, any brain space. “He’s a pathetic man-child,” she told the magazine.