Sounds Sinister

 

    NPR is reporting that the Trump Administration is combining data from several agencies, including the Social Security Administration, to create a searchable database of U.S. citizens, something which has not been done heretofore. One expert described it as a “hair on fire” moment. The immediate purpose of the database is to verify citizenship for voter registration but I’d say there’s zero chance it would stop there. Apparently, there’s been no effort to comply with government privacy rules requiring notices about the creation of new databases and data exchanges.

Another New CIO

Moghaddassi

      From Fedscoop:

The Social Security Administration has moved on to its third chief information officer of the Trump administration, tapping yet another individual with Department of Government Efficiency affiliations. 

According to an update to CIO.gov, a federal page that features IT leaders in the government, Aram Moghaddassi has taken over as SSA’s top IT official after previously working at the agency in a different role. Moghaddassi, who has also worked at the Labor Department, was at one point given access to IT systems at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, FedScoop previously reported. 

Per his LinkedIn profile, Moghaddassi previously worked for two Elon Musk-owned companies: the social media platform X and Neuralink.

Moghaddassi is at least the third DOGE associate to be named CIO at SSA since President Donald Trump took office in January. Mike Russo, a former CIO at Oracle and the payments processing company Shift4, was installed in the position in early February, an agency spokesperson told FedScoop.  …

Employee Fraud In Georgia

       From WDUN in Gainesville, GA:

A former Social Security Administration (SSA) employee from Winder pled guilty to theft of government property and aggravated identity theft. 

According to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Theodore S. Hertzberg, 47-year-old Christina Daniels used her position at the SSA office in Norcross to change the direct deposit information for approximately 28 beneficiaries.  …

The crimes allegedly happened between January 2023 to May 2024. As a customer service representative, Daniels allegedly stole more than $110,000. …

Man Bites Dog Story

      From NBC Miami:

A security guard accused of attacking an elderly man at a Social Security office in Miami-Dade was arrested on Monday, police said.

Peter Vegliante was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and battery of a person 65 or older.

According to police, the 44-year-old Vegliante works for BTI Security, which is a contractor that provides services at federal buildings. …

Police said that surveillance video captured the moment when Vegliante placed the 86-year-old man in a headlock and then forced him to the ground.

The elderly man suffered injuries and it's not clear what sparked the incident.

“Big Balls” Looked “Nervous, Almost Embarrassed”

“Big Balls”

      From Wired:

… “Edward [“Big Balls”] Coristine joined the Social Security Administration this week as a special government employee,” Stephen McGraw, an SSA spokesperson, tells WIRED. “His work will be focused on improving the functionality of the Social Security website and advancing our mission of delivering more efficient service to the American people.” …

Multiple sources at the SSA tell WIRED that Coristine has appeared in person to work on-site at the agency’s Woodlawn, Maryland headquarters. One SSA employee says they saw Coristine with DOGE engineer Aram Moghaddassi, a current X and former Neuralink employee deployed at the agency. The pair was spotted at the SSA cafeteria as recently as Monday, although it’s unclear what day this week Coristine’s employment officially began. “Coristine looked nervous, almost embarrassed,” the SSA source says. “Aram was on the phone with someone … then said ‘Yes I’m with him right now,’ gesturing to Big Balls.’” …

"Big Balls" Now A Social Security Employee

     There have been reports that Edward "Big Balls" Coristine, who had been employed by DOGE, had left employment with the federal government. Those reports turned out to be false. He only left DOGE. He's now a "special government employee" with Social Security. 

    It must be purely coincidental that this was announced the day after the Ways and Means Committee hearing with Commissioner Bisignano. 

Not Social Security But Still Interesting

      From NPR:

A former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency says that he found that the federal waste, fraud and abuse that his agency was supposed to uncover were "relatively nonexistent" during his short time embedded within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was," Sahil Lavingia told NPR's Juana Summers. …

"Elon [Musk] was pretty clear about how he wanted DOGE to be maximally transparent," Lavingia said. "That's something he said a lot in private. And publicly. And so I thought, OK, cool, I'll take him at his word. I will be transparent."

Shortly after the interview was published online, Lavingia got an email. Just 55 days into his work at DOGE, his access had been revoked.

From The Commissioner's Written Testimony

     From Commissioner Bisignano's written testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee:

 

Some Questions For The Commissioner

     Frank Bisignano's hearing before two subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee is Wednesday at 2:00. Here are some questions I'd like to hear answered:

• What has surprised you about Social Security since becoming Commissioner?
• Your agency has recently stopped posting processing time information. Why? 
• There are reports that you ordered Payment Center employees to stop all regular work in order to complete the WEP/GPO workload by the end of this month -- which happens to nearly coincide with the date of this hearing. Is that accurate? If so, why should the people with WEP/GPO cases take precedence over those of people who have been waiting years to receive any money from Social Security? 
• Is it true that Social Security is making widespread use of overtime to do the work of employees who have been induced to leave the agency since Inauguration Day? Why pay time and a half for work when it could have been done for regular pay by those employees who have since departed?
• There has been talk of a goal to get Social Security down to 50,000 employees. Is that a current goal?
• When would you anticipate resuming hiring new employees on a regular basis to replace departing employees?
• Could you provide us with data comparing employee productivity for in office work versus remote work? 
• How much of your time is spent working in Woodlawn or Washington as opposed to working from home or from the special office set up for you in New York?
• Does Palantir now have access to any Social Security data? If so, have they been allowed to copy the data to other government computers or their own computers? 
• Could you provide us with Full Time Equivalent (FTE) numbers for the Social Security Administration for each month since the beginning of calendar year 2024? 
• What is Lee Dudek's employment status at the moment? 
• Social Security will turn 90 years old in August. Is that an occasion to celebrate? 

Brilliant Management

      Let me see if I have this right. The Trump Administration induces thousands of Social Security employees to resign their jobs. Their only replacement, if there is one, is reassigned employees who are untrained on their new jobs and who are almost worse than useless for now because of the mistakes they make. The only solution, other than pointless exhortations to work harder, is to give the remaining employees lots of overtime. So, you pay employees 150% of their regular wages to do the work, or some of it, instead of paying the employees you got rid of 100% of their regular wages to do the same work.

     I’m glad we’ve got great managers running Social Security like a business.

The Problem Doesn’t Go Away If You Stop Talking About It

      From the Washington Post:

Social Security has stopped publicly reporting its processing times for benefits, the 1-800 number’s current call wait time and numerous other performance metrics, which customers and advocates have used to track the agency’s struggling customer service programs.
 

The agency removed a menu of live phone and claims data from its website earlier this month, according to Internet Archive records. It put up a new page this week that offers a far more limited view of the agency’s customer service performance. 


The website also now urges customers to use an online portal for services rather than calling the main phone line or visiting a field office — two options that many disabled and elderly people with limited mobility or computer skills rely on for help. The agency had previously considered cutting phone services and then scrapped those plans amid an uproar. …

Ways And Means Committee Schedules Hearing With Commissioner

      The House Ways and Means Committee has scheduled a hearing with Commissioner Frank Bisignano for 2:00 on June 25th. This will not be a full Committee hearing. It’s a joint hearing between the Social Security and Work and Welfare Subcommittees. The Work and Welfare Subcommittee has jurisdiction over SSI.

Retirement Trust Fund Depletion Date Advanced By Three Calendar Quarters

    From the report by Social Security's Trustees on the state of the trust funds:

• ... The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund will be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits until 2033, unchanged from last year’s report. At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of total scheduled benefits.
• The Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund is projected to be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits through at least 2099, the last year of this report’s projection period. Last year’s report projected that the DI Trust Fund would be able to pay scheduled benefits through at least 2098, the last year of that report’s projection period.
• If the OASI Trust Fund and the DI Trust Fund projections were combined, the resulting projected fund (designated OASDI) would be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits until 2034, one year earlier than reported last year. At that time, the projected fund’s reserves would become depleted, and continuing total fund income would be sufficient to pay 81 percent of scheduled benefits. (The two funds could not actually be combined unless there were a change in the law, but the combined projection of the two funds is frequently used to indicate the overall status of the Social Security program.)
• Although the OASI Trust Fund depletion year remains the same, both the OASI and OASDI depletion dates advanced by about 3 calendar quarters, relative to last year’s projection. ...

    The change in the depletion date is because of the effects of the WEP/GPO repeal. 

Social Security To Turn 90 On August 14

     In less than two months Social Security will celebrate its 90th birthday. When it celebrated its 80th birthday in 2015 there was a ceremony at Social Security headquarters. I wonder what will be done this year? Anything? Does Commissioner Bisignano regard the 90th birthday as an event to be celebrated?

Yawn

      It seems quieter at Social Security since Frank Bisignano was confirmed as Commissioner. I don’t know if it’s a good thing but I have less to write about.

Big NYT Article On DOGE, Dudek And Social Security

      From the New York Times:

Elon Musk stood before a giant American flag at a Wisconsin political rally in March and rolled out an eye-popping allegation of rampant fraud at the Social Security Administration. Scammers, he said, were making 40 percent of all calls to the agency’s customer service line.

Social Security employees knew the billionaire’s claim had no basis in fact. After journalists followed up, staff members began drafting a response correcting the record.

That’s when Leland Dudek — plucked from a midlevel job only six weeks earlier to run Social Security because of his willingness to cooperate with Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — got an angry call from the White House, according to several people familiar with the exchange.

“The number is 40 percent,” insisted Katie Miller, a top administration aide who was working closely with Mr. Musk, according to one of the people familiar with the April 1 call. President Trump believed Mr. Musk, she said. “Do not contradict the president.” 

Throughout the early months of this Trump presidency, Mr. Musk and his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to personal information on millions of Americans, a New York Times investigation has found. …

Mr. Dudek was recently placed on administrative leave … 

Mr. Dudek, 48, has told associates that while he did his best to fend off deeper cuts, he harbors deep misgivings about the effect of DOGE’s oversight, according to several people familiar with the conversations. … 

On Feb. 27, a DOGE engineer told Mr. Dudek in an email that the administration had identified roughly three dozen federal contracts in Maine as “nonessential,” including the two from Social Security. 

“We should cancel them,” wrote the engineer, Ethan Shaotran, 23, who declined to comment when reached by The Times. … 

Mr. Dudek faced another crisis on March 20, when a federal judge issued an order prohibiting Mr. Musk’s team from entering Social Security databases that contained personally identifying information. … 

On the night of the ruling, two DOGE leaders told Mr. Dudek that the agency should continue allowing access to the data despite the judge’s order, with one arguing that the order was so ambiguous that it could block all Social Security employees, not just members of DOGE, from gaining access, according to a person familiar with events. …

     One question I have after reading this is whether Dudek talked with the Times. I’ll guess he did.

One Of The Things That's Been Lost

      Until this year the Social Security Administration had a small staff, perhaps one person, dedicated to preserving agency history. I understand that this has been closed down. The nice and informative website that they created was shut down for a time but is back up now. I never visited there in person but I understood that there was a small agency history library and museum. Does anyone know what happened to the contents of the library and museum? I hope they've been preserved somewhere.

Not Dead Yet

     There was an earlier report that the President planned to shut down the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB). It wasn't clear at the time whether that was happening then or was something to happen in the future. I still don't know what the intent was at that time but the SSAB is still in business. They just issued a statement on Supplemental Security Income and U.S. Territories.

OHO Had More Than 50,000 Overtime Hours Last Month But Still Lost Ground

 

Click on image to view full size

ERE Having Problems

     I'm hearing that Social Security is having a significant problem with its ERE system. Attorneys aren't able to upload files. This has been going on since Monday and is a national problem. 

    By the way, I'm calling it ERE but, honestly, I don't know what the official name is now. It's gone by various names. ERE (Electronic Records Express) is the oldest name and, I think, the name most commonly used by attorneys representing claimants. 

Can The DOGE Kiddie Korps Survive Outside The Tech Hothouse?

     Over the decades it’s been my experience that people new to the Social Security world dramatically underestimate the complexity and sensitivity of the work that the Social Security Administration does. I wonder how long it will take for DOGE employees to figure this out. I doubt that their arrogance can long coexist with knowledge of just how complex Social Security is. 

     As an example of the complexity let’s imagine a recent widow calling in to ask about benefits she might be able to receive. Sounds like that would be a common sort of transaction and it is. Here’s some of the questions that should come up and there are plenty more that may come up:

• How old are you?
• Do you have any minor children?
• Do you have any disabled adult children?
• Are you working and, if so, how much are you earning?
• How much income of any kind do you have now?
• How much do you have in the way of resources, such as money in the bank?
• Are you disabled?

     Depending on the answers to those questions and potentially more, the widow and members of her family may be entitled to these sorts of benefits and she and others in her family may easily be entitled to two or three of these at the same time:

• Aged widows benefits
• Disabled widows benefits
• Child benefits
• Disabled adult child benefits
• Mothers benefits
• SSI
• Retirement benefits
• Disability Insurance Benefits

      If you think that there are online systems available now or in the near future able to seamlessly help a grieving woman whose only online device is a cell phone deal with all this online you just don’t understand people, much less grieving people and you must not have dealt with what passes for AI service now.

     The DOGE people aren’t used to working in an environment including multiple legacy systems. They’re never had to cope with computer illiterates. Those benighted souls weren’t the customers they were aiming at or cared about. They’ve never had to deal with anything like Social Security’s complexity. It will take them at least a couple of years to begin to learn it and I do mean “begin.” They really need to know it in depth and that can take a decade or more. They’re not going to be around the agency anywhere near that long.

Tracking DOGE

      DOGE Track is an online service tracking DOGE activities across the government, including Social Security. It tells you what has happened in great detail but gives no predictions for the future. It’s a great resource. There’s been so much going on that it’s been hard to keep track of it all. I’ll warn you that DOGE Track is a bit buggy. I can open it on my iPad but not my desktop. It’s labeled as a beta version, meaning they know it’s buggy and are working on it. 

It Was Possible!

      Heather Schewedel writes for Slate on what it’s like to correct a mistake in the date that Social Security has down for your birthday. Not fun.

Big Employee Fraud

      From a press release:

 A former Social Security employee has admitted to conspiracy and aggravated identity theft, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei. 

David Lam, 45, Pearland, was an operations supervisor and claims specialist for the Social Security Administration (SSA) office in Houston. …

Lam admitted to working with various coconspirators—typically, women with children—to file fraudulent survivor benefits applications listing the deceased men as the children’s fathers or stepfathers. If true, this would have entitled the women to receive benefits while raising their children as widows. However, the women had no connection to the men listed on the applications and the deceased men did not father the children. To facilitate his scheme, Lam would utilize the deceased men’s names, dates of birth and death and Social Security numbers. 

He would also instruct the coconspirators to split the stolen funds with him. The women would transfer funds via applications like Zelle, CashApp or Chime. Lam agreed to take responsibility for causing $3,346,280 in loss to the SSA and has agreed to pay that amount in restitution.    …

Does It Even Matter Now?

     From SCOTUSblog:

BREAKING: The Supreme Court grants DOGE affiliates access to Social Security Administration records. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson would deny the request.

    The question now is whether the Trump Administration wants to give them that access. I hope not.

Got A Little Carried Away

      From a Washington Post article titled Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people:

… At the Social Security Administration’s call center in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, IT workers were told by managers in mid-April that they needed to request a transfer or face possible firing, said Barri Sue Bryant, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2809. Nearly all of the 40-plus workers in that office did so, sending their laptops and spare equipment to the agency’s Baltimore headquarters and awaiting a new assignment while the union attempted to explain to leadership how essential these employees were, Bryant said.

 “We are critically understaffed in all of our departments,” Bryant wrote in an email to leadership. “Having systems and employees down is not contributing to the goals of this agency.”
But management would soon find out on their own.


A specialized scanner that can quickly input forms and scan barcodes broke down and was unusable for a day. A customer service representative who was supposed to answer the 800 number couldn’t take calls for three days while her computer was in disrepair.
“It really sent everyone for a loop,” Bryant said.


After three days, the agency told the union the decision had been reversed. The employees got back their equipment and resumed their normal jobs in Wilkes-Barre.
 

Asked about the IT workers, Social Security provided an emailed statement from an unnamed official, whom it declined to identify. The statement did not address the reassignments but criticized “the fake news media, specifically the Washington Post” for “pushing a false narrative about Social Security. The truth is that President Trump is protecting and strengthening Social Security just like he promised.” …

Cruelty Is The Point

      From The Guardian:

Millions of legal immigrants may be left unable to work after the US Social Security Administration quietly instituted a rule change to stop automatically issuing them social security numbers.

The Enumeration Beyond Entry program is an agreement between the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, where US Citizenship and Immigration Services would provide social security with information from applicants for work authorization or naturalization.

The program began in 2017 under the first Trump administration.

Without any public notice, on 19 March, the program was halted, affecting millions of immigrants every year and burdening Social Security Administration offices, as those applicants will now have to visit a Social Security Administration office and apply separately to receive a social security number. …

The costs of issuing a social security number through this program in the same year, according to a Social Security Administration memo, was $8 per issuance, compared with $55.80 in a field office. …

Whither Musk's People At Social Security?

     I’m laying in supplies of popcorn. There is open acrimony between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Who could have predicted?

    Can we now get Musk's kiddie corps of DOGE computer "experts" out of Social Security? Like being escorted out by security today?  With a subsequent investigation to see whether they did anything illegal?

A New Scam

      From Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Social Security Administration (SSA) is warning the public about a growing scam involving fraudulent remote job offers falsely claiming to be associated with SSA or other government agencies.

Scammers are posing as hiring personnel or recruiters and offering fictitious remotepositions — such as “administrative assistant,” “claims processor,” or “virtual benefits coordinator.” These scammers may use fake SSA email addresses, official-looking documents, or spoofed phone numbers.

Scammers may ask for personal information such as Social Security numbers, banking details, or copies of government-issued IDs. Victims may be told to pay for training materials or computer equipment as a condition of employment. …

It's Maddening

     From the Washington Post:

“We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on. Believe it or not, government databases list … 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129, 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139. 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149. And money is being paid to many of them.”

— President Donald Trump, in a speech to Congress, March 4

This is an example of how, even after falsehoods are exposed, the spin machine keeps working.

By the time Trump delivered his speech to Congress falsely saying that millions of people above the age of 120 were getting Social Security payments, The Washington Post on Feb. 19 had already published a detailed article that documented how claims of such payments — originally circulated by billionaire Elon Musk, then head of the cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service — were wrong. (We never rated them, but they’re worthy of Four Pinocchios.) ... 

Now, look at the announcement that DOGE made on May 23 in a social media post: 

“After 11 weeks, Social Security has finished this major cleanup initiative: ~12.3M individuals aged 120+ have now been marked as deceased.” 

The post was carefully worded. It did not claim that 12 million people had received improper payments. Instead, it said that these people had been marked as deceased. ... 

[L]ook at how supporters of Trump greeted the news. Many said — or suggested — that Trump’s original false claim was confirmed.

WEP/GPO Cases Prioritized

      From USA Today:

… Social Security Administration employees at processing centers generally prioritize new claims and appeals each day. In late May, employees at many of the nation's eight processing centers were told to put Social Security Fairness Act payments [to address WEP and GPO cases] at the top of their work list and were offered weekend overtime to get it done. …

A half-dozen employees at several of the nation's Social Security processing centers said they were told that the new commissioner wants all of the Social Security Fairness Act claims resolved by July 1, and that they also need to address a backlog of claims that has built up.  …

Employees who received the order said they were told they cannot help with non-priority issues like overpayment reconsideration, updating direct deposit information, checking on monthly payment rates, and Medicare billing related issues. …

The East Coast employee said he’s having to tell caller after caller that he cannot address their Social Security-related need for the next month, which results in both him and his manager being yelled at all day. …

"Chaos Has Ensued"

     From the Washington Post:

...  The administration’s ongoing shake-ups of the workforce, from buyout offers to firings to sweeping reorganizations, are also undermining efficiency.

At the Social Security Administration, for example, Trump officials and DOGE pushed thousands of central-office workers to take lower-level positions answering phones in field offices, threatening to fire whoever did not make the jump, according to emails reviewed by The Post and interviews with a half dozen agency employees.

Chaos has ensued across field offices in the weeks since the reassignments took effect, staffers said. Claims processing has bogged down as regular field office staff — already overburdened because of widespread resignations and retirements — are pulled off their normal duties to train incoming administrators and analysts.

But the backlog means the trainings are being shortened and rushed through, employees said, so inexperienced, reassigned staffers start work unprepared. That leads to more mistakes, more requests for help and more backed-up claims — and more time wasted all around.

To sum it up, “you now have half the staff with very little knowledge of how to do the work,” one relocated staffer said. “And the other half of staff overwhelmed with work and unable to really train or mentor these new folks.”

Asked about the reassignments, Social Security provided an emailed statement from an unnamed official, whom it declined to identify. The statement said DOGE’s work at Social Security had charted a new, better course for the agency.

“The voluntary reassignment of approximately 2,000 employees to direct service positions has not caused disruptions at the agency,” the statement read. “As these employees complete their training and become fully proficient in their new positions, they will further accelerate the progress the agency is making.” ...

Palantir Sounds Scary

      From the New York Times:

In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.

Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm. …

Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions. …

Some current and former Palantir employees have been unnerved by the work. The company risks becoming the face of Mr. Trump’s political agenda, four employees said, and could be vulnerable if data on Americans is breached or hacked. Several tried to distance the company from the efforts, saying any decisions about a merged database of personal information rest with Mr. Trump and not the firm.

This month, 13 former employees signed a letter urging Palantir to stop its endeavors with Mr. Trump. Linda Xia, a signee who was a Palantir engineer until last year, said the problem was not with the company’s technology but with how the Trump administration intended to use it. …

Palantir representatives have also held talks with the Social Security Administration and the Department of Education to use the company’s technology to organize the agencies’ data, according to two Palantir employees and officials in those agencies.

The Social Security Administration and Education Department did not respond to requests for comment. …

     Really, what are the patterns that Palantir could legitimately seek to discover at Social Security? Claims for benefits such as Disabled Adult Child and Parents benefits that should have been taken but weren’t?  Do you really think that Social Security would do business with Palantir for this? The important  trends at Social Security aren’t hidden. They’re easy to spot.