Action 26: LEASH the DOGE! IMMEDIATELY!
Background:
Using authority granted him by Donald Trump’s January 20 Executive Order “Establishing and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’” Elon Musk and a hand-picked staff of 20 have effectively seized control of the US government. They have done so free of any oversight or public scrutiny by seizing government computer systems, notably in the Office of Personnel Management, General Services Administration, and Department of Treasury, denying access to those systems by civil service employees responsible for the management of all government employment and facilities as well as the disbursement of all federal funds.
Consolidation of all federal data into a single unsupervised system, as Musk appears to be doing, compromises critical data security, throwing the door wide open to hackers, national adversaries and private interests wishing to subvert government functions. Any back doors intentionally or inadvertently created in US
government software or communications will be fully exploited by foreign advisories and nefarious private interests. Even the possibility of this occurring will, at a minimum, curtail critical information sharing by our allies and undermine public confidence in government information across many critical fronts, ranging from
national defense to public health and the economy.
Due to Musk’s demonstrable fascist sympathies, his reported direct communications with Vladimir Putin, his extensive financial entanglements in China, and the many US federal contracts of his companies, placing him at the nerve center of government data collection, storage, analysis and dissemination seems fraught with unforeseen but potentially catastrophic risks. It ultimately begs the question of who is running the US government and where they are leading us?
Action:
Urge our Congressional delegation to reassert its Constitutional prerogatives of government oversight and fiscal management now, before they are lost to a full-blown dictatorship. DOGE has clearly exceeded its advisory function and appears to be acting illegally, as an unauthorized branch of government. As its first act,
Musk’s team issued a retirement “buyout” offer to all federal employees obligating the government to indeterminate financial expenditures without Congressional authorization. Likewise, he apparently also intends to use access to the Treasury payment system to throttle Congressionally authorized disbursements
with which he disagrees.
Congress must immediately initiate oversight hearings to inform both itself and the public about these activities and to hold Musk and his colleagues in Contempt of Congress if they fail to cooperate. Failure to respond vigorously to these usurpations of Congressional authority will make Congress complicit in a coup against our Constitutional form of government and its system of checks and balances upon which the American people and American prosperity depend. In short, Congress, do your job!
Contact:
Senator King 202-224-5344 https://www.king.senate.gov/contact
Senator Collins 202-224-2523 https://www.collins.senate.gov/contact/email-senator-collins
Jared Golden 202-225-6306
Urgency: Top prIority
Extra Credit: