What Did DOGE Do With Your Data?

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Social Security Administration (SSA) data is some of the most sensitive personal information the federal government holds on Americans. But according to a whistleblower and SSA’s own admissions in court filings, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team members put millions of Americans’ data at risk. This week, we filed a lawsuit for records that could show who had this social security information, what was done with it, and whether it’s still at risk.

In 2025, SSA’s chief data officer filed a whistleblower complaint alleging DOGE members uploaded a copy of the Numident database — which contains records of every social security number ever issued — to a cloud server without the required security monitoring. The complaint cited an internal risk assessment that warned of “catastrophic impact” if the data were compromised. In January 2026, a government court filing seemingly confirmed the whistleblower’s allegations.

Another whistleblower complaint, investigated in March 2026, raised even more concerns about DOGE’s handling of social security data. The whistleblower alleged that a former DOGE software engineer told colleagues he had downloaded Numident and the agency’s “Master Death File” — which has records on more than 500 million living and dead Americans — on a thumbdrive so he could use it at his new private-sector employer. According to the complaint, the engineer told a colleague he expected to receive a presidential pardon if his actions were deemed illegal.

Our lawsuit seeks emails from senior SSA officials and DOGE members containing terms related to the Numident, cloud environments, risk assessments, and access to sensitive systems. We’re also seeking emails and texts mentioning thumb drives and other key terms. This lawsuit builds on American Oversight’s ongoing investigation into DOGE’s activities at SSA, including a June 2025 lawsuit seeking records on DOGE’s access to Social Security and Treasury Department systems.

Investigating the Secretive ‘Unlawful Voter Initiative’

Instances of noncitizen voting are vanishingly rare — by some counts, even less likely than being struck by lightning. Despite this, the Department of Homeland Security created the “Unlawful Voter Initiative” and allegedly pulled U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers away from their regular duties so they could comb through voting records to search for noncitizen voting. This secretive initiative took on renewed importance after Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin pledged to review voting logs from last week’s election in search of noncitizen voting. We filed a lawsuit to uncover what’s happening behind the scenes.

The initiative could be telling officers to break the law. A whistleblower alleged that USCIS directed officers to misrepresent themselves as voters on state election agency websites to search individuals’ registration and voting records — conduct that could violate laws in several states. The whistleblower also alleged that officers were only given a few minutes for each review, even though the reviews required them to use questionable data to resolve complex questions of citizenship, identity, and voting history for each case.

We’re suing for emails sent by senior DHS and USCIS officials, training materials distributed about the initiative, records reflecting the review quotas assigned, communications with state election offices in 20 states, and records to identify the data used in the initiative.

“The public deserves to see the rules, the data, and the quotas behind this operation and know what safeguards are in place to protect eligible voters,” said our executive director, Chioma Chukwu. “We’re going to court to demand those answers.”

On the records

“I Love Deportations”: Signal Chats Show Corey Lewandowski’s Role in Planning Removals

Records we obtained, reported on by Politico, show top DHS officials — including Corey Lewandowski, former DHS Sec. Kristi Noem’s closest adviser — using a Signal chat to trade candid updates on the Trump administration’s deportations of people to third countries.

The records show then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons giving updates to the group in July 2025: “Mission completed in South Sudan. landed at 2340 EST. They departed with no issues.” Lewandowski replied, “Praise Jesus.” The flight ended a weeks-long legal fight over a group of men the administration had held at a U.S. military base in Djibouti. Most of the men had no connection to South Sudan, where they were sent.

Ten days later, Tricia McLaughlin, DHS’s top spokesperson at the time, asked the group if there was a third country removal that day. Lewandowski replied, “I love deportations.” Lyons responded “And they are only going to get better sir!“

We obtained these records as part of our ongoing litigation seeking communications from senior DHS officials related to some of the administration’s most controversial actions, including third country deportations.

Rubio’s Taxpayer-Funded Football Flights

This week, the Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s flights to University of Florida football games have cost taxpayers at least $1.2 million so far. When a previous cabinet secretary used a government plane for travel, Rubio himself demanded an investigation. “When a senior official is taking frequent personal trips at significant taxpayer expense, it’s reasonable to ask whether or not those senior officials are exercising that judgment appropriately,” American Oversight’s Liz Hempowicz told the Washington Post.

Rubio isn’t the only one doing this. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel has used the FBI jet to go to the Olympics, a golf trip, personal dates, and other sports events. We’ve asked the FBI for Patel’s flight logs and travel expenses — and any dissent memos about his travel. We requested similar records for JD Vance, after reporting suggested he used government resources to take eight vacations in seven months. And after former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem may have violated the law by using taxpayer funds to attend a partisan event, we asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate.

Previously, we obtained records that showed Rex Tillerson — Trump’s secretary of state in 2018 — flew on military aircraft for 15 domestic trips and cost an estimated $1 million.

American Oversight in the news

‘Serious failures to safeguard’: Trump admin violating FOIA by refusing to release documents about ‘sensitive’ Social Security data shared and accessed by DOGE staff (Law & Crime)
Inside Chuck Gray’s working relationship with election denier Cleta Mitchell (WyoFile)
Trump Media brags about revenue surge from service charging $60K+ a month to see Trump posts early (Gizmodo)
Why Arizona’s Maricopa County is always at the center of election conspiracy theories (Fast Company)
In Democratic Texas, the Southern Border is About to Change (Newsweek)