Deep Thoughts

      If a live man is listed as dead in the Death Master File, are dependent benefits payable to his “widow” and children? Sounds like a case for estoppel to me.

A Salute To Those Who Resist Weaponizing The Death Master File

      From the Washington Post:

Two days after the Social Security Administration purposely and falsely labeled 6,100 living immigrants as dead, security guards arrived at the office of a well-regarded senior executive in the agency’s Woodlawn, Maryland, headquarters.
Greg Pearre, who oversaw a staff of hundreds of technology experts, had pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to move the migrants’ names into a Social Security death database, eliminating their ability to legally earn wages and, officials hoped, spurring them to leave the country. In particular, Pearre had clashed with Scott Coulter, the new chief information officer installed by Elon Musk. Pearre told Coulter that the plan was illegal, cruel and risked declaring the wrong people dead, according to three people familiar with the events.
But his objections did not go over well with Trump political appointees. And so on Thursday, the security guards in Pearre’s office told him it was time to leave. …

Staffers at Social Security began raising the alarm about the urgent need to address a flaw in the agency’s deaths database in February, according to a person familiar with the matter and records obtained by The Post.
Anybody granted the appropriate permissions within Social Security could mark someone as dead, employees had realized, without having to prove their demise in any way — for example by referencing medical records or a death certificate. In emails and meetings that rose up the management chain, employees warned that the dataset was vulnerable to manipulation, according to the person and the records.
Employees’ fear was partly that a bad actor who gained access to government credentials could label groups of living individuals as dead to target them for punishment, according to the person and the records. Some of those raising the alarm worried specifically that the Trump administration might try to use the database to go after people the president dislikes, the person said. …

A staff of fewer than a dozen career employees was assigned to work with Musk’s team on the project, according to a senior official who left the agency around that time. Career employees were concerned that they might be facilitating something illegal, asking themselves if they were at risk of going to jail for the work they were doing, the official said. …

One official chose to resign rather than remain involved in what he saw as an illegal attempt to repurpose the agency for immigration enforcement. …

Within Social Security, the general counsel’s office is preparing an opinion that will find the Trump administration’s unprecedented use of the death database a violation of privacy law, according to one person with knowledge of the upcoming declaration. The opinion will take issue with the agency knowingly and falsely declaring that living people are dead, the person said. …

What Should Banks Do?

      Banks have a clear legal obligation to freeze the accounts of people who have died. What obligation or even right do they have to freeze the account of some living person whom the President wishes to declare a nonperson? Can banks and other financial institutions continue to rely upon the Death Master File or whatever they want to call it now? They know it’s being deliberately manipulated to deceive them into doing things they shouldn’t do.

This Makes Sense If You Prefer That The Public Not Know What You’re Doing

     From Federal News Network:

The Social Security Administration is cutting staff from its communications office, and will rely on social media posts instead of press releases to update the media and the public.

Regional SSA offices, each representing several states, will no longer have fully staffed public affairs offices, because of the agency’s mass reassignment of employees to field offices. …

“Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public — formerly known as Twitter,” Kerr-Davis said. “This will become our communication mechanism.” …

What Due Process Rights Do These Folks Have? What’s To Prevent This From Being Done To Anyone Trump Regards As An Enemy?

      From the New York Times:

Since taking office, the Trump administration has moved to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were allowed into the country under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Now, the administration is taking drastic steps to pressure some of those immigrants and others who had legal status to “self-deport” by effectively canceling the Social Security numbers they had lawfully obtained, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with six people familiar with the plans.

The goal is to cut those people off from using crucial financial services like bank accounts and credit cards, along with their access to government benefits.

The effort hinges on a surprising new tactic: repurposing Social Security’s “death master file,” which for years has been used to track dead people who should no longer receive benefits, to include the names of living people who the government believes should be treated as if they are dead. As a result of being added to the death database, they would be blacklisted from a coveted form of identity that allows them to make and spend money. …

Reality Intrudes On The DOGE Carnival But Employees Told To Refuse To Talk With Attorneys?

      From the Washington Post:

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting operation, the U.S. DOGE Service, set off a panic in March among elderly and disabled people after proposing that the Social Security Administration scrap many of its claims services over the phone in an effort to end alleged identity fraud.
 …

According to an internal memo obtained by The Washington Post, plans to force people awarded retirement, disability and Medicare benefits to set up direct-deposit payments online or in person have been canceled after the agency concluded it could vet these transactions for fraud by phone. Those applying for benefits can also continue the process by phone without the need to go online or visit an office in person, according to the Monday memo from acting deputy commissioner Doris Diaz to acting commissioner Leland Dudek.

At the same time, the agency will implement a new fraud-detecting tool to “flag suspect teleclaims based on known, common characteristics of fraudulent claims,” the memo said. Only if an applicant’s phone call is flagged will they be required to show up in person, according to the memo. …

The memo offered few details on the new anti-fraud tool or how the agency will manage to stand it up in less than a week. It stated only that the tool will be launched “with current resources.”  …

An email went out to Social Security technicians on Monday instructing them to “cease all written responses to Congressional inquiries and inquiries from Advocates,” according to a copy obtained by The Post. A similar email went out to employees in other divisions affecting a wide range of staff members, including benefits authorizers, claims specialists and customer service representatives. …

Problems For International Claimants

     Millions of U.S. nationals live overseas. Some of them draw Social Security benefits, including disability benefits, which means that some of them need hearings on their disability claims. I'm hearing of new difficulties created for those needing hearings. They had been allowed to participate in their disability hearings by telephone from their homes overseas. I'm hearing that now they can only participate in their hearing by telephone if they're within the borders of the U.S.

DOGE Being Audited

      From Wired:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is auditing Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The probe, which has been ongoing since March, covers DOGE’s handling of data at several cabinet-level agencies, including the Departments of Labor, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, the Treasury, and the Social Security Administration, as well as the US DOGE Service (USDS) itself, according to sources and records reviewed by WIRED. …

The audit, according to records reviewed by WIRED, is broadly centered on DOGE’s adherence to privacy and data protection laws and regulations. …

     The GAO is part of the Legislative Branch so Trump can’t fire the Director of GAO for having the audacity to audit DOGE.