Sabotage or Data Security? Sources Tell Reuters That DOGE Locked Gov't Employees Out of HR Data Systems

Red State ^ | 01/31/2025 | Ward Clark

[SeekAndFind]

The reasons for this are unclear, but it appears that on Friday, aides to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) point man Elon Musk apparently locked a significant number of federal government employees at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) out of their work computer networks, according to anonymous sources in an exclusive story from Reuters:

Musk, the billionaire Tesla (TSLA.O) CEO and X owner tasked by Trump to slash the size of the 2.2 million-strong civilian government workforce, has moved swiftly to install allies at the agency known as the Office of Personnel Management.

The two officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said some senior career employees at OPM have had their access revoked to some of the department's data systems.

The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.

"We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems," one of the officials said. "That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications."

As of this writing, neither Musk nor anyone from the Trump administration has made any statement about this action or why it was taken. In corporate downsizing, it's not an uncommon step to restrict employees' access to data before informing them they are about to be sent to the wonderful world of unemployment, although there's no way of knowing if that's what is going on here. Add to that the fact that this is highly sensitive data, including personal and professional information, and security becomes a major concern.

Elon Musk, as well, has been empowered with finding ways to make the government more efficient. It's not unreasonable to presume that reducing the federal workforce might be one way to do that.

---

See Related: DOGE Win #1: Trump Orders All Federal Employees Back to the Office

Elon Musk: POTUS Wants SpaceX to Bring Home Stranded Astronauts

---

It's unclear if this X post is related, but note Musk's comment at the bottom:

Hmm...

https://t.co/B8lMexh01c pic.twitter.com/z0BR6PL5gY— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) January 31, 2025

Musk wrote:

Before even getting to timed scripts, the number of government jobs that could be replaced simply with a mouse macro is astounding!

That's an interesting notion. The OPM, on the day Pres. Trump was inaugurated, came under the control of a cadre of former Musk employees, the Reuters piece (linked above) continued:

A team including current and former employees of Musk assumed command of OPM on Jan. 20, the day Trump took office. They have moved sofa beds onto the fifth floor of the agency's headquarters, which contains the director's office and can only be accessed with a security badge or a security escort, one of the OPM employees said.

The sofa beds have been installed so the team can work around the clock, the employee said.

If you're going to reduce the government workforce, OPM would seem to be where you would start - and some federal workers nearing retirement are already getting buyout proposals. This act has the hallmarks of a corporation downsizing, in fact, but then, cutting the fat out of the federal Colossus is one of the things Donald Trump ran on.

This is a developing story. We will bring you updates as events warrant. Better find something to hang onto, because it sure looks like the Trump administration and the man himself aren't planning to slow the pace anytime soon.

[Darksheare]

Someone tried to log in to do something bad, and now they’re complaining about being locked out.
Kinda like how Vindman screamed about how hard it was for him to try and insert falsified info into the record.

[MCSETots]

Data Security for $100 Alex . . .

[E. Pluribus Unum]

This is SOP for any exiting employee.

Sounds like there are exits in these employees’ futures.

[Texas_Jarhead]

This the same OPM that was previously suffered a major hack by the CCP?

[cross_bearer_02]

Either that or some evidence was found of changing names/roles in an effort to hide DEI individuals and this is a way to put a stop to all that and make sure records are preserved.

[OldHarbor]

I worked for Gateway computers . When they decided to close our location down, all employees were mustered up in a meeting room. While all that was going on, they disabled the computer network and they also disabled our badges .

Sop , that was 20+ years ago.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I remember Gateway from the Computer Shopper days, back when getting a PC was an adventure.

Didn’t they come in boxes camouflaged with cow spots?

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

There were 2 OPM hacks. One was with people who were Federal and Military, the second was just Federal service. The assumption is that China has extensive files on Military and Federal employes from these hacks.

[iamgalt]

This is SOP for any exiting employee.“

Yeah that is what l thought too. Don’t buy a boat folks.

[Newbomb Turk]

Freezing the data files to find out how many governement employees are fake employees and their paychecks are going to someone elses bank account.

This is gonna be great !

[paulcissa]

This the same OPM that was previously suffered a major hack by the CCP?

Yep, same OPM. They should be forced to back away from the computers before someone gets hurt.

[OldHarbor]

Yes, they did. They provided those boxes to put our stuff in.

They also reminded us that we were on camera and any theft or vandalism would be prosecuted.

They had a formula where you were paid out a certain amount based on your time with the company. I had been there less than a year , it was 3 months pay for me I think.

[fruser1]

Probably want to prevent little baddies from changing the job titles of employees working DEI positions.

[Billthedrill]

This is SOP for any exiting employee.

It certainly is. It can be brutal. I worked for a company bought by another company and the first indication we had of who was staying and who was going was who could still log in one morning. Unbelievably awkward for both.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yeh, they got locked out so they couldn’t sabotage anything.

[Bobalu]

An attempt to preserve evidence...

[fortes fortuna juvat]

Excellent news. Probably half or more of those weepers were completely useless in terms of achieving the mission of the agency.

[Keyhopper]

Well if they can’t access the computers I guess we don’t need them anymore. Hey, they can learn to code. teehee
I wonder if illegals could do their jobs cheaper.

[Dacula]

I worked for a tech company in Atlanta during the Dot Com bust. We were all called to a 4 PM Friday meeting. The company was shutting down. We were not aloud to get our personal items at that time. Arrangements could be made much later. Every person was escorted to the door by a Sheriff’s Deputy and told to leave the premises immediately.