A group of Democratic senators wants a thorough audit of federal agencies’ computer systems and any security issues that may have arisen by way of access being granted to members of Donald Trump’s dubiously named Department of Government Efficiency.
On Wednesday, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., introduced the cutely titled Pick Up After Your DOGE Act, which calls on the Government Accountability Office to conduct a “full accounting of all federal agencies” where DOGE received access to computer systems, networks, data or information.
“The DOGE-boys have weaseled their way into Americans’ most sensitive data systems, claiming to hunt ‘waste, fraud, and abuse,’ while actually creating waste, fraud, and abuse,” Whitehouse said in a press release. “They’re destroying Americans’ trust in once-reliable government systems and could be hawking your stolen data to their friends in Big Tech and AI.” (The senator has previously speculated that DOGE employees may have the ability to create “back doors” in federal systems that could allow them unauthorized access in the future.)
Some DOGE employees’ reported links to notorious hackers, along with suspicion from some federal workers that DOGE employees have spied on their work activities, have helped fuel concerns about potential security issues.
Current Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, who works within the Government Accountability Office, announced in April that he had begun piecemeal audits into DOGE’s data access with regard to the Treasury Department, the Social Security Administration and the Office of Personnel Management. The Democratic senators’ new bill would be a more expansive audit of all federal agencies — and would set a timetable for when the results must be turned over.








