-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of his efforts. He is a valued member of the Senate Finance Committee, and this is a thoughtful approach to bring accountability at Social Security.

The legislation directs the independent nonpartisan Government Accountability Office to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of Social Security's databases and in the process, determine whether DOGE left the Agency vulnerable to cyber attacks when its agents gained unfettered access to Agency records.

Americans want to know whether the DOGE agents violated Federal privacy and cyber security laws when they accessed their personal information.

Now, I have said it once. I will repeat it again. Social Security's databases represent the Fort Knox of Americans' personal lives.

I see our friend from South Dakota here. He is a member of the Intelligence Committee. We have talked about privacy issues on a number of occasions, and privacy is what the Whitehouse legislation is all about. This whole question of the Social Security databases involves people's bank account numbers, their home addresses, work histories, salaries, medical records. The list goes on and on.

Social Security, under the direction of the DOGE-appointed Acting Commissioner, let Mr. Musk's cronies stroll in without raising a finger. It remains to be seen what is going to happen with Mr. Musk no longer leading DOGE and the new Commissioner Mr. Bisignano taking the helm at Social Security.

It is clear that DOGE accessed the original records under false pretenses, and they were claiming that there was rampant fraud throughout the Social Security program.

As the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I have been demanding evidence from the Trump administration for some time now about the existence of all of this ``fraud.'' Social Security has refused to provide me with a single shred of evidence. That is because--
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Social Security, as I say, has refused to provide me with a shred of evidence because we already know from the Social Security watchdog that Social Security fraud--and, colleagues, this is the relevant number--represents 0.009 percent of payments.

So we have known for some time that this effort is part of the Trump plan to cut Americans' Social Security benefits. I believe the long- term objective is to privatize the program so it can be sold off to some billionaires and he can weaponize Social Security to go after groups it wants to target.

This effort is also part of what Donald Trump, Mr. Musk, and Peter Thiel have made a broader effort all about, and that is to collect and compile a master list of personal information on each American by pulling from the IRS and the Departments of Homeland Security, Education, and Social Security.

I close by saying, thankfully, Federal courts have slowed DOGE's access to Social Security records for now. But the fact is, there needs to be a comprehensive understanding of the damage to make sure Americans' data is protected. That is why Senator Whitehouse's legislation is so important. I urge its passage.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source