“What happens when one of the world’s largest repositories of free information becomes unreliable?
That dire situation came to pass in late January, when many federal websites took down entire datasets to avoid possibly violating a series of executive orders from President Donald Trump. At the same time, the Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-directed task force that is slashing government operations, has canceled contracts for the collection of data and cut workers who analyze and evaluate information about various facets of American life, such as education, housing and consumer protection. These developments led to widespread concern that some data that researchers have long relied on the government to collect would no longer be readily available, potentially hindering various initiatives meant to help Americans — both inside and outside of government.
Although some information has come back online, the availability and transparency of government-collected data is suddenly no longer a given. This isn’t a worry just for data journalists like us, either. Experts I spoke with laid out how the public and private sector, companies large and small, and even the average person use government data to make decisions about program effectiveness, business prospects and life choices. With this in mind, I delved into this recent interruption in data access, why this data has significant value and what challenges may lie ahead if government data becomes less accessible and reliable moving forward.”
“More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.”
“DOGE deserves some credit for simply trying to map the federal government—a gargantuan endeavor that involves over 100 agencies, each a matryoshka doll of sub-agencies and offices. As former federal technology officer Marina Nitze wrote in Reason today, the amount of nonsensical rules, regulations, and turf battles means it’s a Sisyphean struggle to make even the most basic improvements to federal websites and tech systems.”
“Mass layoffs have begun, with most of the some 200,000 probationary employees expected to be terminated in the coming days, mostly from the departments of Energy and Veteran Affairs, but also some from the Small Business Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture (specifically the Forest Service), and—ironically—the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which has been overseeing the layoffs.
Probationary employees tend to be workers who have only been in their jobs for a year or under (or two years in some cases). They have the fewest job protections so they tend to be the easiest to fire.
“These firings are not about poor performance—there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants,” said government employee union president Everett Kelley in a statement. “They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.””
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“The OPM has apparently dispensed shifting guidance, reportedly telling agencies earlier this week that they should focus on terminating underperforming employees before later in the week shifting to a policy that all or most probationary employees should be dismissed.”
“Whether you’re hot or cold on DOGE’s government-slashing potential, everyone agrees it needs data to survive. Record access lawsuits might starve it of them.”
“the lawsuit argues — in often dramatic terms — that the Appointments Clause of the Constitution calls for someone with such significant and “expansive authority” as Musk to be formally nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
“There is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual,” says the lawsuit, filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez and officials from Arizona, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, California, Nevada, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. “Although our constitutional system was designed to prevent the abuses of an 18th century monarch, the instruments of unchecked power are no less dangerous in the hands of a 21st century tech baron.” Two of the 14 states are led by Republican governors.”
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“The suit filed by the 14 states says the Constitution blocks the president from overriding “existing laws concerning the structure of the Executive Branch and federal spending.” As a result, the suit says, the commander-in-chief from is forbidden from creating — or even “extinguishing” — federal agencies, and from “slashing federal programs or offering lengthy severance packages as a means of radically winnowing the federal workforce,” in a nod to the Trump administration’s “deferred retirement” offer to government employees.”
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“”[T]he President does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally dismantle the government. Nor could he delegate such expansive authority to an unelected, unconfirmed individual,” Thursday’s lawsuit says.”
“In the weeks since Trump’s inauguration, he and Musk have made claims from the Oval Office and on social media about specific programs such as disaster relief for states, lodging for migrants in cities and that 150-year-olds are receiving Social Security payments. However, what few details were provided were vague, unsupported and sometimes false.
In fact, Musk admitted Tuesday that some of its claims might be “incorrect.”
During his first news conference since starting DOGE, Musk backtracked on a claim that $50 million was spent by the federal government to give condoms to Gaza and Hamas. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt first made that claim at a White House briefing last month and was spread wide by Trump, Musk and Republican lawmakers.
In fact, the condoms were sent to a province in Mozambique named Gaza as part of an HIV prevention measure.”
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“On Thursday, the billionaire reposted to his 217.5 million followers on X a claim that Reuters was awarded $9 million by the Department of Defense for a “social engineering” program and called it a “scam.” Trump passed the claim along on his Truth Social platform, posting “GIVE BACK THE MONEY NOW!”
However, public records show the contract was awarded in 2018, during Trump’s first term, to Thompson Reuters Special Services division, not its news organization, following a request from the previous year from a Department of Defense agency for research on “automated defense social engineering attacks.””
“The arrival of Elon Musk’s allies at the Labor Department has sparked fears that the quality of the agency’s reports on everything from inflation to jobs could suffer at the hands of inexperienced outsiders — with global consequences.”