A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

April 15, 2025 5:00 AM ET



In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the Southeast Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board.

The small, independent federal agency investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It stores reams of potentially sensitive data, from confidential information about employees who want to form unions to proprietary business information.

The DOGE employees, who are effectively led by White House adviser and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB's internal systems. They've said their unit's overall mission is to review agency data for compliance with the new administration's policies and to cut costs and maximize efficiency.

But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security

[groundloop]

1. This should surprise no one. tRump and Elmo were simply furthering their criminal enterprise.

[Iamscrewed]

2. Surveillance

The beginning, SS, KGB, CIA, Homeland securit, and,and?

[UpInArms]

3. They are destroyers

Any action they take is for that purpose

[chowder66]

4. K&R. It's a must read IMO.

[riversedge]

5. Agree.

[Native]

6. NBC has a great, and much shorter article about this...

Berulis, who works at the labor board, wrote in the declaration that within days of DOGE staffers arriving in March, he noticed a series of “anomalous” events in the board’s computer systems. Those included changes to the use of multi-factor authentication, which is a widely used security protocol, and internal alerting systems being switched off, he wrote in the 14-page statement.

He also wrote that he tracked what appeared to be the outbound transfer of around 10 gigabytes or more of data — “the equivalent of a full stack of encyclopedias” if the data were all text files, he wrote. He wrote that the removal was “extremely unusual because data almost never directly leaves NLRB’s databases.”

The database accessed by DOGE contained personally identifiable information of “claimants and respondents with pending matters before the agency” as well as confidential business information gathered during investigations, he wrote.

He added that after DOGE gained access to the labor board’s systems, there was an increase in attempted logins from locations outside the United States including from a user with an internet protocol (IP) address in Russia. He wrote that the person with the Russian IP address appeared to have a correct username and password, created minutes earlier by DOGE engineers, and was blocked from logging in only because of their location.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/federal-employee-alleges-doge-activity-resulted-data-breach-labor-boar-rcna201425