Accountability for Doge

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to discuss something that should alarm every American citizen.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, DOGE or so-called DOGE employees, have been rummaging through people's individual Social Security records.

For the general public's awareness, DOGE is the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, initially led by Elon Musk until there was a breakup of the bromance between he and President Trump, but DOGE still persists.

Mr. Speaker, as you know--and it has to be as much a concern to you as it is to me--having more than 127,000 Social Security recipients in your district whose information is private and secure, is being rummaged through by twentysomethings who have no accountability, have never been vetted, and who will not come before Congress.

I asked Chairman Estes last week in our subcommittee meeting to bring DOGE forward to please tell us what they are doing rummaging through everyone's personal data and information.

Ranking Member Neal and I are going to introduce a resolution of inquiry to bring DOGE before Congress. Every Member, Republican and Democrat, should be concerned about this. Every American citizen should be aware that DOGE has taken all of that information and stored it in a cloud, a/k/a another site that is vulnerable, that anyone can hack into, and that the Social Security Administration has no access to. No one is allowed to look at that data who hasn't been vetted, as was testified before the Ways and Means Committee last week.

How is it that DOGE employees are exempt because they are above the law? It requires the United States Congress to call them in front of us. If they are doing such a great job with efficiency, and if that was their goal, clearly they ought to be able to come before Congress and testify as to what they have found.

Mr. Speaker, I think every American should be aware that what is really going on here is an attempt to get at your data and your information and to further attempt to privatize Social Security. That is the end goal.

When you look at the layoffs that have occurred at the Social Security Administration, when you look at what has happened to the regional offices, when you look at the basic phone service and the inability of people to contact and speak with a human being, it should astound and awaken every single American.

I hope that all Americans who may be listening to this or people in the audience who may be listening to this take to heart what is happening with their personal data and information.

Why should anyone, let alone unvetted, unaccountable DOGE people, go through your personal records? Why do they need that information? What does that have to do with government efficiency, and why did they steal them and put them in an unsecure cloud that anyone could hack from the outside?

This is an abomination, and it needs to be corrected. It can very easily be corrected by the legislation that we have introduced calling to make sure that DOGE comes before Congress.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans need to stand up and call them to come before us.

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