It’s been about a week since the public first learned about Charles Borges, the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, and the remarkable whistleblower complaint he filed. According to his dramatic accusations, members of the DOGE operation uploaded a copy of a highly sensitive database to a vulnerable cloud server, creating “enormous vulnerabilities.”
In fact, The New York Times reported that the database in question “includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.”
Borges didn’t say that the database had been breached, but that DOGE members allegedly copied the highly sensitive data without any kind of “independent security monitoring” created enormous and avoidable risks.
In theory, Borges, a decorated military veteran, would be rewarded for coming forward and shining a light on the underlying risks. In practice, the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer quickly found himself out of work. NBC News reported:
[Borges] said in an email Friday that he’s submitting his ‘involuntary resignation’ because of actions the agency has taken against him. … [He said] in an email to colleagues — which was obtained by NBC News from a person who received it — that he had experienced retaliation since his whistleblower complaint became public.
Borges said the SSA’s actions “make my duties impossible to perform legally and ethically” and have caused him “physical, mental and emotional distress.”
He added that since reporting his concerns to management, he has “suffered exclusion, isolation, internal strife, and a culture of fear, creating a hostile work environment and making work conditions intolerable.”
The whole point of having whistleblower laws is to prevent circumstances like these. For years, both parties agreed that federal employees who witness wrongdoing — corruption, mismanagement, abuses, et al. — should be encouraged to come forward, confident in the knowledge that protections would be in place.
According to the Social Security Administration’s former chief data officer, he faced retaliation anyway, not because he’d done something wrong, but because he filed a complaint about others who allegedly did something wrong.
Given the recent track record surrounding other whistleblowers, it stands to reason that others who see behind-the-scenes abuses in federal agencies will get the message and keep quiet in the coming months and years. But it’s also worth appreciating the degree to which the White House has created a “blame the messenger” environment. Erika McEntarfer provided the public with accurate information that Donald Trump didn’t like, so she was ousted as the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse provided the public with accurate information that Trump didn’t like, so he was ousted as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Top officials at the National Intelligence Council provided the White House with accurate information that Trump didn’t like, so they were ousted, too. The crackdown on dissenting voices, alas, doesn’t end there. FEMA officials have been punished for telling inconvenient truths. The same is true at the EPA and the CDC. In each instance, these officials raised legitimate concerns about important missteps. In each instance, they have been punished. During last year’s campaign, then-candidate Trump made little effort to hide his authoritarian ambitions related to silencing dissenting voices. Unfortunately, it’s a promise he and his team have kept.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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