Left-wing political activists were aghast this week to find out that unelected officials have access to their social security numbers and other private financial data.
“Elon Musk has your Social Security number. It’s as scary as it sounds,” Natasha Sarin, a contributing columnist at the Washington Post, wrote Wednesday.
“Billionaire weirdo Elon Musk and his band of techies have likely accessed your most private information and have their disreputable mitts on the faucet from which vital government payments flow,” said USA Today weirdo Rex Huppke. Huppke said the development means it’s time to “panic” and moaned that no one “voted” to give Musk access to personal data. (RELATED: Maxine Waters Has Four-Minute Meltdown Shouting About How Much She Dislikes Trump, Musk)
This has always been the case, obviously. If you ever took out student loans, employees at the Department of Education have access to your data. The same is true if you’ve paid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. The Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service is responsible for distributing tax refunds and social security checks, so the chances are high that your information is stored there, too. And let’s not forget the Social Security Administration, which literally assigned your social security number.
All of the people accessing this data are unelected bureaucrats. There’s probably hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the federal government who can see your social security number. Yet, for some reason, liberals are big mad that Elon Musk now has access to it, too.
Katie Miller, a spokesperson for DOGE, has said in response to complaints about Musk’s team accessing classified documents at USAID that “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.” A source told CNN that Musk has a “top-secret security clearance,” which is not surprising considering he has a bevy of government contracts in sensitive areas, like rescuing the two NASA astronauts stranded in space. The New York Times also reported that everyone who has access to Treasury payment systems as part of Musk’s team passed background checks and obtained security clearances.
No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances. https://t.co/dwgYKvT9Dm
— Katie Miller (@katierosemiller) February 2, 2025
The idea that Musk having access to confidential materials, including Americans’ financial data, gets even more absurd because it’s not like the government has done a very good job of handling data up to this point.
The White House’s annual Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) report found no fewer than eleven severe data breaches in 2023. About 40 percent of those breaches were due to actions violating a department’s acceptable use policies. The major breaches took place at the Department of the Treasury — oops! — Health and Human Services, and the Justice Department, to name a few.
Treasury announced at the end of December 2024 that Chinese hackers stole documents related to financial sanctions in a “major incident,” and reports indicated China had targeted other departments and their officials throughout the Biden administration. (RELATED: Chinese Hackers Have Been Feasting On Key US Infrastructure On Biden’s Watch)
The Government Accountability Office offered identity protection services to nearly 6,600 current and former employees and contractors whose data was accessed through a January 2024 breach. The Department of Education has been the subject of multiple data breaches, including its Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) program in 2016 and 2022. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that my identity was stolen in 2018.
The Department of Justice agreed Wednesday to limit DOGE’s access to the Treasury payments system to just a few special employees in “read-only” mode, meaning they cannot make changes to the system. Is that USA Today weirdo still hyperventilating? (SUBSCRIBE To The Daily Caller’s PATRIOTS Membership HERE)
I don’t begrudge anyone who is concerned about leaks of their private data. It was hell trying to cancel the dozens of high-dollar smartphones and SIM cards that my identity thief purchased in my name and restore my impeccable credit score. Pretending this issue is exclusive to Musk and DOGE as they try to cut government waste, though, betrays the foul political motivations of those who only suddenly claim to care about the security of Americans’ sensitive information.
