5 ms·

Senator demands to know status of 'duplicate' SSA database 'immediately'

99 points by raw_anon_1111 1y ago

ngcc_hk 1y ago
Those who resisted was not supported and was forced out. What one would expect now. A letter and a formal response meant nothing. One day we might see all these out. Good luck America.
Simulacra 1y ago
I'm always intrigued by these letters, because there's not really anything the Senator can do to force a response. He can say you have two weeks to respond, but aside from forcing someone to testify, or trying to pull funding, this Senator really doesn't have any leverage
- metabagel 1y ago
  I believe how it works is that if the letter is not responded to, it becomes a subpoena. If that's not responded to, it becomes either criminal or civil contempt of Congress. Bear in mind that this senator is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. https://legalclarity.org/what-is-the-penalty-for-refusing-a-congressional-subpoena/ https://legalclarity.org/what-is-the-penalty-for-refusing-a-... https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations.htm https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigation...
  - e44858 1y ago
    Can a single senator issue a subpoena, or does it require a vote?
    - efitz 1y ago
      Some committees are chartered with the ability of the committee chair to issue subpoenas.
- standardUser 1y ago
  It Crapo's serious, he can try to recruit some other Republicans in congress and start making some noise. There must be at least a few who are particularly keen on privacy issues and/or care about their constituencies SS checks. And these are issues that are easy to scare voters with, and can rile up both party's bases and independents. Plus, everyone hates Musk. But that'll never happen, because Trump won't allow it and his party has become slavishly obedient to his every whim. In any other Congress, DOGE would already be the subject of congressional joint investigation.
- davmre 1y ago
  Senators, especially committee chairmen, have quite a bit of implicit leverage, beyond the direct leverage of subpoenas or directly cutting funding to an offending agency. Any given Senator is to some extent constantly in a favor-trading game with executive branch officials. People from the President on down need congressional cooperation to get their pet provisions into bills, programs funded, nominees approved, etc. A Senator can tell a White House official "I'd love to help you with that, however I have this issue with this agency not responding to my requests". Assuming it's a reasonable thing, whoever at the agency is in charge of this then gets an irate call from their boss's boss's boss ordering them to cooperate. Of course this mostly doesn't actually get played out, because everyone understands the dynamic that defying senatorial requests will ultimately cost the President in terms of cooperation on other issues. So the norm is mostly to comply with reasonable requests, unless you're quite sure that it's a top-level priority where the White House really wants to take a stand.
- mandeepj 1y ago
  > there's not really anything the Senator can do to force a response. As a chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, he can call SSA head for a senate hearing, which he can’t refuse
  - TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
    And if they refuse to attend, or to cooperate, the Senate can absolutely order them held in contempt, which can include actually being held.
fooqux 1y ago
> involuntarily resigned I'm curious what this actually means. Common sense would translate this to "fired" but since they didn't use that term, I'm guessing something else is at work here, probably involving whistleblower protection laws.
- throw0101a 1y ago
  >> involuntarily resigned > I'm curious what this actually means. See perhaps "constructive dismissal": * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal A work environment is made hostile to the (mental/physical/emotional) well-being of a someone such if they want to stay safe/sane they have to leave.
- mandeepj 1y ago
  > involuntarily resigned A bit further down in the article effectively forced him from his role as chief data officer
- missingcolours 1y ago
  I assume that means "you can resign, or we'll fire you, your choice".
frogperson 1y ago
[flagged]
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - krapp 1y ago
    Those words can't be both meaningless and an incitement to violence. Pick a lane, please.
    - SilverElfin 1y ago
      They can be meaningless to most people but incitement to a few deranged people.
      - krapp 1y ago
        The words "authoritarianism" and "fascism" aren't meaningless to most people. They aren't even meaningless to you.
      - clipsy 1y ago
        So now all of us on the left must police our speech for fear of what some lunatic might do? Why? Charlie Kirk himself said that gay people should be stoned to death -- do you think perhaps that might have incited a few deranged people? Why don't people like you ever demand that the right curtail their own speech for fear of what the lunatic fringe might do?
  - clipsy 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - yepitwas 1y ago
    It’s not hyperbole. People shutting down frank discussion of what these folks are doing because it might hurt their feelings is part of why we’re where we are now. Saying mean things about the people consistently calling for political violence for decades and currently attempting to shift the country very far toward authoritarianism, isn’t the problem.
mrandish 1y ago
> Numident is used to store records of every person who has ever applied for a Social Security Card IIRC, a Social Security Card application is a multi-page form which contains a good portion of the info most financial institutions use to verify identity.
- cafard 1y ago
  As far as I know, American hospitals see that newborns leave with birth certificates and Social Security cards.
  - TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
    The cards and certified birth certificates get mailed out by the relevant agency. The hospitals can provide the data to the parents. The program that enables hospitals to enroll newborns with the SSA is optional and voluntary. Strictly speaking, if the hospital doesn’t do it, the parents have to do it. If the parents never do that, then the child would need to eventually do that. And of course there are people who haven’t been issued one before, for various reasons, including people who come to live in the US. And some people aren’t born in hospitals.
    - hulitu 1y ago
      > And some people aren’t born in hospitals. I always regarded US as a civilized country. /s
smoyer 1y ago
[flagged]
- moduspol 1y ago
  Is BlueSky leaking onto HN now?
  - SanjayMehta 1y ago
    He’s violet not blue.
- showdeaduser 1y ago
  [dead]
efitz 1y ago
"…to transfer data from the Numident database to a private cloud within SSA's AWS cloud environment." This clarified everything for me. The US government has entered into several large cloud provider contracts and as part of the contracts, the clouds have been evaluated and approved for use. Not for every use nor for every kind of data, but government security folks go over everything with a fine toothed comb, demand additional controls, and so forth. AWS used to have at least two “private” clouds (existence of which was not secret) for the US government as of 2021; probably there are more now. My impression is that this guy is a typical bureaucrat who has power based on his ability to gatekeep access to information; he’s upset someone went around him. His concerns might have some validity but they aren’t nearly so shocking as the story is being made out to be. Likely DOGE copied the data BECAUSE of this guy getting in the way. The guy’s hysterical exaggeration makes me think he is part of the “resistance” and just wanted to be a wrench in the works for the Trump administration. Trump is demonstrating on a near weekly basis (in lawsuit after lawsuit) that the president IS the executive branch, that the bureaucracy exists solely to help the president carry out his duties, and that bureaucrats who don’t follow instructions don’t belong in government. The Supreme Court is backing him nearly 100% because he’s right and they are protecting the the presidency; this is not due to loving or even wanting to support Trump; several of the right-wing justices like ACB and Roberts hate him. So IMO this guy is making a mountain out of a molehill and any “hostile work environment” is largely of his own creation. That said, I admit I could be wrong, and will wait for the inevitable investigations and lawsuits.”, but I expect it to fizzle because I don’t think there is any “there” there.
- avidiax 1y ago
  > My impression is that this guy is a typical bureaucrat who has power based on his ability to gatekeep access to information; he’s upset someone went around him. Gatekeepers exist for a reason. Sometimes the stuff inside the gates is important. For someone to think that doing an end-run around this guy and creating a new non-authoritative copy of this database is reasonable, you have to think that there's a reasonable end that couldn't be achieved by going through the established channels. The only thing that I've heard of is using AI to look for "waste, fraud and abuse", and it's very unclear to me how looking at, say, my parents' SSN application for my SSN several decades ago is going to tell you whether that application or any disbursements are fraudulent.
josefritzishere 1y ago
I think we all know Elon has a copy of the whole SSA database.

99 points by raw_anon_1111 1y ago

Those who resisted was not supported and was forced out. What one would expect now. A letter and a formal response meant nothing. One day we might see all these out. Good luck America.

Simulacra 1y ago

I'm always intrigued by these letters, because there's not really anything the Senator can do to force a response. He can say you have two weeks to respond, but aside from forcing someone to testify, or trying to pull funding, this Senator really doesn't have any leverage

metabagel 1y ago
I believe how it works is that if the letter is not responded to, it becomes a subpoena. If that's not responded to, it becomes either criminal or civil contempt of Congress. Bear in mind that this senator is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. https://legalclarity.org/what-is-the-penalty-for-refusing-a-congressional-subpoena/ https://legalclarity.org/what-is-the-penalty-for-refusing-a-... https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations.htm https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigation...
- e44858 1y ago
  Can a single senator issue a subpoena, or does it require a vote?
  - efitz 1y ago
    Some committees are chartered with the ability of the committee chair to issue subpoenas.
standardUser 1y ago
It Crapo's serious, he can try to recruit some other Republicans in congress and start making some noise. There must be at least a few who are particularly keen on privacy issues and/or care about their constituencies SS checks. And these are issues that are easy to scare voters with, and can rile up both party's bases and independents. Plus, everyone hates Musk. But that'll never happen, because Trump won't allow it and his party has become slavishly obedient to his every whim. In any other Congress, DOGE would already be the subject of congressional joint investigation.
davmre 1y ago
Senators, especially committee chairmen, have quite a bit of implicit leverage, beyond the direct leverage of subpoenas or directly cutting funding to an offending agency. Any given Senator is to some extent constantly in a favor-trading game with executive branch officials. People from the President on down need congressional cooperation to get their pet provisions into bills, programs funded, nominees approved, etc. A Senator can tell a White House official "I'd love to help you with that, however I have this issue with this agency not responding to my requests". Assuming it's a reasonable thing, whoever at the agency is in charge of this then gets an irate call from their boss's boss's boss ordering them to cooperate. Of course this mostly doesn't actually get played out, because everyone understands the dynamic that defying senatorial requests will ultimately cost the President in terms of cooperation on other issues. So the norm is mostly to comply with reasonable requests, unless you're quite sure that it's a top-level priority where the White House really wants to take a stand.
mandeepj 1y ago
> there's not really anything the Senator can do to force a response. As a chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, he can call SSA head for a senate hearing, which he can’t refuse
- TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
  And if they refuse to attend, or to cooperate, the Senate can absolutely order them held in contempt, which can include actually being held.

fooqux 1y ago

> involuntarily resigned I'm curious what this actually means. Common sense would translate this to "fired" but since they didn't use that term, I'm guessing something else is at work here, probably involving whistleblower protection laws.

throw0101a 1y ago
>> involuntarily resigned > I'm curious what this actually means. See perhaps "constructive dismissal": * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal A work environment is made hostile to the (mental/physical/emotional) well-being of a someone such if they want to stay safe/sane they have to leave.
mandeepj 1y ago
> involuntarily resigned A bit further down in the article effectively forced him from his role as chief data officer
missingcolours 1y ago
I assume that means "you can resign, or we'll fire you, your choice".

frogperson 1y ago

[flagged]

SilverElfin 1y ago
[flagged]
- krapp 1y ago
  Those words can't be both meaningless and an incitement to violence. Pick a lane, please.
  - SilverElfin 1y ago
    They can be meaningless to most people but incitement to a few deranged people.
    - krapp 1y ago
      The words "authoritarianism" and "fascism" aren't meaningless to most people. They aren't even meaningless to you.
    - clipsy 1y ago
      So now all of us on the left must police our speech for fear of what some lunatic might do? Why? Charlie Kirk himself said that gay people should be stoned to death -- do you think perhaps that might have incited a few deranged people? Why don't people like you ever demand that the right curtail their own speech for fear of what the lunatic fringe might do?
- clipsy 1y ago
  [flagged]
- yepitwas 1y ago
  It’s not hyperbole. People shutting down frank discussion of what these folks are doing because it might hurt their feelings is part of why we’re where we are now. Saying mean things about the people consistently calling for political violence for decades and currently attempting to shift the country very far toward authoritarianism, isn’t the problem.

mrandish 1y ago

> Numident is used to store records of every person who has ever applied for a Social Security Card IIRC, a Social Security Card application is a multi-page form which contains a good portion of the info most financial institutions use to verify identity.

cafard 1y ago
As far as I know, American hospitals see that newborns leave with birth certificates and Social Security cards.
- TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
  The cards and certified birth certificates get mailed out by the relevant agency. The hospitals can provide the data to the parents. The program that enables hospitals to enroll newborns with the SSA is optional and voluntary. Strictly speaking, if the hospital doesn’t do it, the parents have to do it. If the parents never do that, then the child would need to eventually do that. And of course there are people who haven’t been issued one before, for various reasons, including people who come to live in the US. And some people aren’t born in hospitals.
  - hulitu 1y ago
    > And some people aren’t born in hospitals. I always regarded US as a civilized country. /s

smoyer 1y ago

[flagged]

moduspol 1y ago
Is BlueSky leaking onto HN now?
- SanjayMehta 1y ago
  He’s violet not blue.
showdeaduser 1y ago
[dead]

efitz 1y ago

"…to transfer data from the Numident database to a private cloud within SSA's AWS cloud environment." This clarified everything for me. The US government has entered into several large cloud provider contracts and as part of the contracts, the clouds have been evaluated and approved for use. Not for every use nor for every kind of data, but government security folks go over everything with a fine toothed comb, demand additional controls, and so forth. AWS used to have at least two “private” clouds (existence of which was not secret) for the US government as of 2021; probably there are more now. My impression is that this guy is a typical bureaucrat who has power based on his ability to gatekeep access to information; he’s upset someone went around him. His concerns might have some validity but they aren’t nearly so shocking as the story is being made out to be. Likely DOGE copied the data BECAUSE of this guy getting in the way. The guy’s hysterical exaggeration makes me think he is part of the “resistance” and just wanted to be a wrench in the works for the Trump administration. Trump is demonstrating on a near weekly basis (in lawsuit after lawsuit) that the president IS the executive branch, that the bureaucracy exists solely to help the president carry out his duties, and that bureaucrats who don’t follow instructions don’t belong in government. The Supreme Court is backing him nearly 100% because he’s right and they are protecting the the presidency; this is not due to loving or even wanting to support Trump; several of the right-wing justices like ACB and Roberts hate him. So IMO this guy is making a mountain out of a molehill and any “hostile work environment” is largely of his own creation. That said, I admit I could be wrong, and will wait for the inevitable investigations and lawsuits.”, but I expect it to fizzle because I don’t think there is any “there” there.

avidiax 1y ago
> My impression is that this guy is a typical bureaucrat who has power based on his ability to gatekeep access to information; he’s upset someone went around him. Gatekeepers exist for a reason. Sometimes the stuff inside the gates is important. For someone to think that doing an end-run around this guy and creating a new non-authoritative copy of this database is reasonable, you have to think that there's a reasonable end that couldn't be achieved by going through the established channels. The only thing that I've heard of is using AI to look for "waste, fraud and abuse", and it's very unclear to me how looking at, say, my parents' SSN application for my SSN several decades ago is going to tell you whether that application or any disbursements are fraudulent.

josefritzishere 1y ago

I think we all know Elon has a copy of the whole SSA database.