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The government is investigating new claims that DOGE misused Social Security data
A sign in front of the entrance of the Security Administration’s main campus on March 19, 2025 in Woodlawn, Maryland. Congress and the SSA’s Inspector General are investigating whistleblower claims about whether Department of Government Efficiency staff may have misused Social Security data.
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An internal government watchdog and members of Congress are separately investigating new allegations that a Department of Government Efficiency staffer potentially misused sensitive Social Security data.
The Social Security Administration’s inspector general notified the leaders of several House and Senate committees on Mar. 6 that it is reviewing an anonymous complaint “on matters relating to the potential misuse of SSA data by a former DOGE employee, among other allegations,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by NPR.
This week, Congressional Democrats investigating DOGE’s access to Social Security data also announced an expanded probe after receiving whistleblower information alleging a former DOGE software engineer at SSA claimed to have retained copies of sensitive databases filled with personal information about almost every living American. The whistleblower’s allegations were first reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday.
According to the Post‘s reporting, the former DOGE employee claimed at least one database was held on a personal thumb drive, and claimed to have retained “God-level” access to SSA systems, the whistleblower alleged. The former staffer also allegedly told colleagues they wanted to share the data with their private-sector employer, the Post reported. NPR has not reviewed the whistleblower complaint.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the House Oversight committee’s top Democrat, called the allegations “deeply disturbing” and said they show the Trump administration’s “callous disregard for the safety and security of Americans’ most sensitive information.”
“Not only has an ex-DOGE bro been accused of running around with the Social Security information of every American on a flash drive, he also may have the ability to edit and manipulate data at the Social Security Administration at will,” Garcia wrote in a statement.
The Office of the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration declined to comment, saying it doesn’t confirm or deny the existence of law enforcement investigations.
The inspector general’s office told lawmakers in its Mar. 6 letter that it was not sharing further information about the anonymous complaint because that “risks jeopardizing any investigation and potentially chills future complainants from submitting anonymous allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse.”
An unnamed spokesperson for SSA disputed the whistleblower’s claims in an email to NPR.
“The allegations by a singular anonymous source have been strongly refuted by all named parties – SSA, the former employee, and the company. Even the Washington Post admitted they could not verify the information – because it is not true,” the spokesperson said. (The Post story did not name the former DOGE employee or the company they work for.)
“SSA is focused on continuing our digital-first transformation to deliver better, faster service for every American,” the spokesperson continued, and went on to disparage the Washington Post.
Democrats in Congress call for more investigations
The whistleblower alleged the former DOGE staffer claimed to have retained copies of two databases, NUMIDENT and the Death Master File, according to the Post‘s report.
The NUMIDENT database contains sensitive records for almost every American alive today, including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, place of birth and parents’ names. The Death Master File includes records for individuals who have been reported as deceased.
An aerial of The Social Security Administration’s main campus in Woodlawn, Maryland. The agency is investigating claims that DOGE employees misused sensitive personal data for millions of Americans.
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As part of the House Oversight Committee Democrats’ ongoing investigation into DOGE, Garcia is now asking the Social Security Administration to answer questions about DOGE’s data access and wants former DOGE staffers affiliated with SSA to contact the committee to “clarify the facts surrounding DOGE use of Americans’ sensitive data.”
Other Democratic lawmakers who received the letter from the SSA inspector general also called for investigations into the whistleblower’s allegations.
“These allegations describe one of the largest known data breaches in American history, perpetrated by Trump appointees for the explicit purpose of weaponizing Americans’ sensitive personal data for political gain,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. “There must be a full public accounting of this breach at Social Security, including justice for anyone who committed or enabled criminal theft of Americans’ data.”
Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) and Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), who sit on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement: “These continued revelations demand a full investigation with accountability if wrongdoing is confirmed.”
A growing pattern of DOGE data access concerns
The OIG investigation and the whistleblower complaint come after the Social Security Administration disclosed in January that DOGE employees secretly and improperly shared sensitive personal data in 2025 and that the agency could not verify the extent of the violations.
The January disclosure was made in an ongoing court fight over whether DOGE improperly gained access to SSA data and abused that access. The disclosure also said two unnamed DOGE employees were referred to a federal watchdog for potentially violating the Hatch Act, which bars government employees from using their job for political activity.
The court filing also said SSA found that the employees communicated with a political advocacy group about matching Social Security data with state voter rolls.
DOGE team members also circumvented the agency’s IT rules and improperly shared data on outside servers, sent private records to other DOGE staffers outside the agency and had access to some data even after a judge temporarily blocked access.
Charles Borges, the former chief data officer at SSA, filed his own whistleblower disclosure last year alleging DOGE staffers improperly copied a dataset of more than 300 million Americans’ information into a virtual database without following security protocols.
Borges’ complaint said that last summer, a former DOGE employee at the SSA requested that the agency make a copy of its NUMIDENT database to a private cloud server that would effectively give DOGE officials unfettered access to the data.
On Wednesday, Borges told NPR the allegations made in the new whistleblower complaint would have “generational consequences” if true.
“This is exactly the scenario that kept me up at night. An irrecoverable loss of the entirety of our personal data. Once that data has ‘left the building’, you cannot close Pandora’s Box again,” Borges said.
“The loss of this data would not be ‘just another data breach,’ but could represent a structural failure of our identity system,” he said. “It could require significant federal action, counterintelligence planning and response, and the consideration of a complete redesign of how identity works in the United States.”
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“It’s blood money”: Family of exonerated man in Texas yogurt shop murders speaks out after settlement
The widow and the daughter of Maurice Pierce, one of the four men wrongfully accused in the 1991 Texas yogurt shop murders, have confirmed they signed a multimillion-dollar settlement with the city of Austin.
Kimberli and Marisa Pierce spoke with correspondent Erin Moriarty in a new episode of the podcast “48 Hours: Case by Case.” Moriarty has reported on the yogurt shop murders for over 30 years.
Maurice Pierce’s widow Kimberli made clear that their priority has never been financial compensation. “It’s blood money for us. He died for this money,” Kimberli Pierce said. “It’s about the reform and the changes that need to happen, not only in Austin, but apparently across the country.”
They also went into great detail about what they believe happened when Maurice Pierce was shot and killed by police in 2010.
Maurice Pierce was one of four men, along with Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen and Forrest Welborn, who were wrongfully accused in the murders of four teenage girls in Austin on Dec. 6, 1991. Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers, and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison were tied up, shot and left inside the yogurt shop as it was set ablaze.
The four men were exonerated in February after investigators linked another man, Robert Eugene Brashers, to the killings. The city of Austin subsequently offered a $35 million settlement. Because Maurice Pierce died in 2010, his share of $10 million will go to Kimberli and Marisa Pierce.
Eight days after the killings, 16-year-old Maurice Pierce was arrested at a mall, carrying a .22, the same caliber handgun connected to the crime. Kimberli Pierce said police told Maurice Pierce that his gun was the murder weapon. He responded by mentioning his friend Forrest Welborn. Maurice Pierce was then wired up and sent to speak with Welborn, but investigators ultimately determined that Welborn and the others knew nothing about the murders, and no charges were filed at that time.
Marisa Pierce has said there was no evidence when her father was questioned, “only a detective and a narrative, a narrative so completely false. It feels evil.”
Nearly eight years later, in 1999, all four men were arrested after Scott and Springsteen confessed to the murders. They later recanted, saying they had been coerced. Springsteen and Scott were tried and convicted, but later those convictions were overturned on constitutional grounds. A subsequent DNA test excluded all four men. Maurice Pierce was never convicted but spent three years in jail before his release in 2003.
Kimberli Pierce said her husband came home a hardened man. She believes police continued to harass Maurice and their family after his release. In 2010, Maurice Pierce was stopped for a routine traffic stop, fled on foot, and was shot and killed by an Austin police officer who said Pierce had stabbed him with a knife.
Marisa and Kimberli Pierce told “48 Hours” that they intend to review the circumstances surrounding the night of Maurice Pierce’s death. Marisa Pierce revealed in new, emotional detail that she was on the phone with her father at the time. She believes he panicked and was only trying to get away, not to hurt anyone. She described her father’s last breaths: “And in those last moments, he had just said I’m sorry, I don’t think you’re gonna see me again, and I love you.”
“48 Hours” reached out to the Austin Police Department about the Pierces’ allegations of harassment and their questions about Maurice Pierce’s death in 2010. The police department said they had no additional comment.
For the Pierce family, the settlement is a starting point, not an end point. They have put forward seven proposed reforms they hope the city of Austin will approve, including appointing a child advocate whenever a minor is questioned, prohibiting deceptive interrogation tactics, educating juveniles about their rights and establishing accountability measures to address tunnel vision in police investigations.
In a statement shared with “48 Hours,” the Pierces wrote: “Real justice is not only about acknowledging harm after the fact but about creating safeguards that prevent future families from enduring the same pain.”
This year, Maine nearly became the first state to pass a statewide moratorium on new data centers. But before the law could take effect, supporters of an A.I. data center project in the small town of Jay rallied to fight the ban — and won. So why do residents there want one? We traveled to Jay to find out.
The U.S. Supreme Court
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday handed the Trump administration a tool that could make it far more difficult for asylum seekers to enter the United States.
Asylum is a form of legal protection available to people fleeing persecution in their home countries if they meet certain criteria. Under U.S. law, an asylum seeker who “arrives in” the U.S. is entitled to apply for asylum and generally cannot be removed from the country until their asylum application is processed.
By a 6-3 vote, the high court ruled that federal law allows the government to stop asylum seekers from physically setting foot in the country, effectively keeping them from applying for asylum.
The Obama administration was the first to try stemming the flow of asylum seekers that way. But the lower courts blocked the policy on grounds that it violated federal law by denying asylum to people who otherwise would have qualified for it, had they been permitted to literally put one foot over the border.
The Trump administration, however, sought to revive the policy, contending that the lower court’s ruling “deprives the Executive Branch of a critical tool for addressing border surges and preventing overcrowding at ports of entry.” And on Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito ruled that because asylum seekers are not in the U.S. when they are turned away at the border, they did not “arrive in” the country. Therefore, he continued, the legal protections for asylum seekers have not kicked in.
Writing for the liberal dissenters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that Border Patrol agents speak with all immigrants at legal entry points and speaking with an agent is effectively the first step in “arriving in” the U.S.
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