DOGE will allow Elon Musk to monitor the US government from the inside

Under the executive order, DOGE teams, which “usually will include a DOGE team leader, an engineer, a human resources specialist and an attorney” will be sent to different agencies. They will be granted “access to all unclassified agency records, software systems and IT systems,” apparently with the goal of streamlining data sharing across federal agencies.

A former USDS employee who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity called the repurposing of the Digital Service an “A+ bureaucratic jiu-jitsu move.” But, they say, they are concerned that DOGE’s access to sensitive information could be used to do more than simplify government operations.

“Will this technical talent be pointed toward the use of data by the federal government to defeat adversaries?” they ask themselves. “To track particular populations of interest for this administration for the purpose of targeting them or individuals or what could end up being?”

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It seems, however, that the first order of DOGE is to fire people in agencies who could push back the Trump administration’s agenda, starting from the existing USDS staffand hire new people.

“The DOGE teams have a lawyer, an HR director, and an engineer. If you’re trying to identify functions to cut, people to cut, have an HR director there and have a lawyer who says: “Here’s what we it is allowed to do or not to do”, would be a way of facilitating that”. says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, noting that DOGE’s potential access to federal employee data could put “them in some sort of a target to be fired.”

When Musk took over Twitter, he brought help outside of his I’m looking closely like their other companies to transform the company, a move that seems to repeat itself.

Who exactly will be part of DOGE is a particularly thorny issue because technically there are two DOGEs. One is the permanent organization, the revamped USDS – now the US DOGE Service. The other is a temporary organization, with a termination date of July 4, 2026. The creation of this organization means that the temporary DOGE can operate under a special set of rules. It can sequester employees from other parts of the government, and it can also accept people who want to work for the government as volunteers. Temporary organizations can also hire what are known as special government employees — experts in a given field who can bypass the rigors of regular federal hiring processes. They are also not subject to the same transparency requirements as other government employees.

In the best case scenario, this will allow DOGE to move quickly to address the issues and talent needed, as well as build systems that make government services smoother by facilitating the flow of information and data. But in the worst case, this could mean less transparency around the interests of people working on important government projects, while allowing possible surveillance.