Statement from Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner, about Commitment to Agency Transparency and Protecting Benefits and Information
“I am honored and humbled to be appointed Social Security's Acting Commissioner pending Senate confirmation of Frank Bisignano to be SSA's next Commissioner. I accepted the position because I strongly believe in the agency's mission and the hardworking and dedicated employees who serve America.
Openness, transparency, and accountability are tenants of good government and demonstrating them begins with me. To that end, I want to share several points to reassure the public and our employees that I will continue SSA's history of transparency and protecting benefits and information.
I have experienced firsthand the impact that Social Security benefits have on family's lives. Since joining SSA in 2009, I have had the opportunity to work across multiple parts of SSA, and especially appreciated my experiences working alongside frontline employees in the Cambridge, MA field office.
Transparency begins with me: My first call as Acting Commissioner was to our Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to provide them an opportunity to oversee and review any and all agency activities, including my actions past, present, and future. I trust in the People to be informed, and I am making available my agency personnel and performance files to the OIG.
The law matters and we will follow it: I have invited the Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan and independent agency that works for Congress, to observe how we conduct agency business.
Good government means finding ways to do better: The Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, is a critical part of President Trump's commitment to identifying fraud, waste, and abuse, and better ways for the government to function to support its people. I want to be very clear about the DOGE personnel who are now working at Social Security.
- Our continuing priority is paying beneficiaries the right amount at the right time, and providing other critical services people rely on from us.
- DOGE personnel CANNOT make changes to agency systems, benefit payments, or other information. They only have READ access.
- DOGE personnel do not have access to data related to a court ordered temporary restraining order, current or future.
- DOGE personnel must follow the law and if they violate the law they will be referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.
I also want to acknowledge recent reporting about the number of people older than age 100 who may be receiving benefits from Social Security. The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits.
I am confident that with DOGE's help and the commitment of our executive team and workforce, that Social Security will continue to deliver for the American people.”
Tenants? Tut, tut, tut.
28 comments:
So generous of him to allow OIG to do the thing that they were already doing, and literally exist to go. So transparent.
Love the "working alongside" field employees bit too. Makes it pretty clear he was never a field employee.
It seems reasonable to predict that it's going to get much harder for a claimant to establish an inability to perform any job that exists in significant numbers in the national economy. Agency employees aren't going to want to stick their necks out and become targets of Doge. Many will err on the side of denial unless it's a slam dunk.
my landlord keeps raising our rent on openness, transparency, and accountability
Mr. Dudek, thank you for providing some information but I have questions. Does the DOGE workers’ read access include access to any private health information of beneficiaries and claimants? What, if anything, is SSA under you doing to protect private information about reproductive health and other sensitive medical information of Americans that, if disclosed, might be used to target them? Do you agree that there is nothing you can do to prevent DOGE workers from re-disclosing such information to their handlers or others once you have allowed them see it?
Lee Dudek got his marching orders from Lil X.
Finally someone leading the agency the right way!!! Thank God the resistance twitt is gone
Refreshing to have someone from the ranks of actual workers at the agency. Rather than the professional layabouts in the SES, who haven't done the actual work in decades.
Dudek will be thrown under the bus in three, two, one...
You forgot to add the very bottom of the Statement
"To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on X @SSAPress."
That's silly. He's just acting. If you mean that angry SES'ers will try to set him up, sounds like he's aware of their treachery.
Wow. What a strongly worded statement about the misinformation being spread about Aged Social Security beneficiaries. I would be more interested in the Acting COSS explaining how he got this new position….Hint - he's not the good guy in this story....
You already know he’s not the good guy in the story, yet you are just now asking how he got his role? Sounds like you don’t need his account before judging.
Who from within DOGE is embedded at the SSA now? Any idea who the team lead is?
Full transparency doesn't extend to super secret information like org charts.
Well he definitely sounds like he is a yes man. And not very tech savvy. Read only access doesn’t matter. Just because they can’t edit info, doesn’t mean they can’t download it or feed it into another system. Maybe he will get it when they toss him out with the rest of the “non-essential” SSA employees. After that they will say it’s not working anymore and issue everyone checks to close it out. When people fritter the money away and can’t afford to retire, they’ll be told shame on you for not investing it. All very predictable but I guess we just don’t ever learn our lessons in this country.
I wonder why Lee Dudek is wearing knee pads to work these days.
Oh 5:16. You do entertain me so. I have seen his account of what happened. Would just like to hear an explanation in his own words - to hardworking, committed SSA employees of all political persuasions - how it was OK to "circumvent the chain of command" to do what he wanted to do. Or how it is ok to "bully executives." That's not the kind of "leader" that should be running an Agency like SSA. Bottom line is he did what DOGE wanted and he was promoted far outside of his skill levels because he catered to them. It's gross. So yeah, I'm judging. It's pretty easy to see he played the patsy. He is directly responsible for anything negative that now happens at SSA. We'll see how he does with that. Assuming, of course, that he's needed in a few months.
Same reason his nose smells like Elon’s rear end.
Outside the Heritage Foundation and similar ideological homes for neo-con snowflakes, Leland's job prospects are now limited in and out of government. Who wants someone who can't be trusted? And I worked with him, he's a decent manager, but not running an operation like SSA esp during a crisis. I'm more concerned with the staff on the 9th floor who have to deal with the GOP politicals and DOGE DOGE and carry out orders. They have to be torn.
This alleged decent manager would not have thrown the agency or the taxpayers under the bus.
In a slew of emergency hearings in those lawsuits, federal judges have grasped for more details about what, precisely, Musk and DOGE are doing. At times, these judges, like Platkin, have suggested the ambiguity is intentional. On Tuesday, a federal judge suggested that Musk’s position — and the entire DOGE operation — may be unconstitutional given “what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight.”
Appendix A to Part 401 of the regs:”(b) Penalties. (1) All employees must guard against improper disclosure of records which are governed by the Privacy Act. Because of the serious consequences of improper invasions of personal privacy, employees may be subject to disciplinary action and criminal prosecution for knowing and willful violations of the Privacy Act and regulation.” So the question is whether anyone at SSA who cooperates with DOGE requests to look at private information is violating the Privacy Act and subjecting themselves to those serious consequences. Any Privacy Act experts out there?
He will likely have a very difficult path forward. Media is already reporting about his statement disagreeing with the party line about millions of dead people receiving benefits. That's unlikely to bode well for him long-term with the people who put him there. Also, once COSS is confirmed they will need a scapegoat for why things weren't moving quickly enough on returning to office and whatever else they didn't like. Dudek will be the natural choice as ACOSS, with possibly an investigation into his past activities, which he himself alluded to in his own recent statement. The guy is playing a very dangerous game with very powerful interests. And yes, if he does manage to land somewhere in the agency and keep his job, those angry SESers likely won't forget either when the next administration change happens, as they always do.
Yes, like so many cabinet members, it's great to have someone who hasn't managed 100 people now in charge of 50,000+
Poor Lee doesn’t understand yet that Agent Jefferson — the guy left holing up the tent at OIG — can’t act as Lee’s personal criminal defense attorney. Strange that Lee didn’t come clean with why he was put on administrative leave on February 13. That would be open and transparent…
Musk tweeted the 1st sentence of Leland’s LinkedIn confession and opened the door for the full confession of what he did to come out. He may have removed it from his LinkedIn but nothing ever really goes away once it’s on the internet….this is why that tidbit about OIG is in the email.
Lee better get his pardon request ready now - he's likely to need it. Of course, by then, he'll no longer be of use to anyone....
https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/leland-dudek-ssa-doge
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