I’m just thinking of my 38 years experience in federal government - especially since Okla City, it is the unusual fed office building that one can just waltz into without some authorization. I’ve ceased being impressed at how often my government issued ID w/ photo and chip (and low-level security clearance) is insufficient. And visitors to our office space require some clearance and issuance of visitor IDs. Interesting to think what the management of my small office would do if someone just showed up and said they wanted to mess around with our computers…
Yes, if the rule of law is broken, then the rule of law is broken. However, there are federal procurement regulations that any government agency would have to follow, which would lay out what standards the contractor has to meet.
But, I agree that if you have a lawless administration, then anyone could gain access.
Please DO imagine it. Security guards call the cops? Shoot the intruders? A white-collar worker (yourself perhaps?) slams the intruders’ hands in a file cabinet (that REALLY hurts, BTW!). I’ve never worked in a high-security place-- what would have happened in your office? For real?
There ya go! 
At my place, the doors from the lobby to the rest of the building are badged, and the lobby is staffed by armed guards from the Federal Protective Service, so you wouldn’t be able to proceed beyond the lobby without either having a badge or being escorted by someone with a badge.
The IT equipment is the same way: you’re not getting in to fiddle with files or code unless you have an account with a username and password.
I expect things are like this at most federal facilities - point being that the outsiders now tinkering with the IT systems at the Treasury department didn’t simply sneak in through a basement window, turn on a PC, and start pounding out code; they’re there because government employees on site granted them access. Whether those employees had the legal authority to do so, or whether it was wise to do so, is a separate issue.
The security chiefs that tried to stop the Musk team were immediately put on leave.
…Presumably by someone with the authority (and a directive from higher up) to do so.
That answers my question.
My bold.
How high? Did someone literally get on the phone to the White House? I’m curious about who exactly – by name or title – would give the order, “Put those people on leave immediately!” and be obeyed.
I would guess it was the acting Secretary of whatever department lthey were trying access.
Part of Project 2025 was identifying those people already in the federal bureaucracy who were in the tank for Donald Trump, and making sure that they were elevated to positions of power in the interregnum before Trump’s appointees could be installed.
So: Musk team calls Musk, Musk calls the acting SecTreas, acting SecTreas does the dirty work. Possibly the team has the acting Secretary’s phone # on speed dial when it happens, in case Musk is on a ketamine binge. Everyone knows the coup playbook in advance.
Same in my shop, and the many many offices I’ve visited. No, management does not have a hotline to the White House. Instead, most Agencies are divided into various components/departments. Each of those components - or the Agency itself will have Regional and national offices. In practice, in a local office it is generally sufficient to get authorization from Regional. A good portion of management motivation is CYA.
So if someone showed up wanting to mess with our servers, one of our local managers would call Regional to check it out. Even if Regional said, “Go ahead!”, I’m having a hard time imagining anything significant happening - such as messing with our computers - without some clear directives from Nat’l HQ.
IME, folk tend to be more and more of sticklers as you go up the chain - to National HQ, and especially areas requiring clearance. I’m pretty sure the FPS exists within Treasury. I’d imagine the new Secretary - or a Deputy or someone else down the line but with sufficient authority to issue such orders - issued some memo saying, “Give these guys access.” That is pretty much all it would take. Or when the immediate supervisors started calling for authorization, they reached the offices of such an official, and were told to let them in.
Bureaucrats are used to getting new bosses every few years, and getting directives they may not personally agree with and which may not make sense. But it would be an exceptional bureaucrat who, when faced with an apparently valid directive from on high, took it upon themself to fail to comply, deeming it an “unlawful” directive. To large extent, what is “lawful” is what someone with enough authority tells you to do.
I think it is important for folk to not lose track, however, of the fact that this is EXTREMELY unusual for how the bureaucracy has worked for decades.
The root of our problems now is that when laws, norms and traditions were put in place, no one imagined that criminals would take over the government.
Security would have them detained and they’d call the cops, same as any place where someone tries to go where they aren’t supposed to. Your regular office workers would typically not get involved unless they were personally in fear of their safety.
Now if the CEO of your company comes down and tells you to let someone mess around with the computers, who is going to tell them no? The way it’s worked at any client company or government agency I’ve worked at is I have to fill out a bunch of forms and whatnot, but at the end of the day, some manager just clicks a button that grants me permission to access whatever systems they think I need.
So I guess legally (and technically) speaking, if the Pofthe USA wants to bring in someone to work on some system, what’s to stop him? I imagine Elon Musk isn’t the first person to ever access these databases.
Some insight into what happened at Treasury:
TL,DR: Acting treasury sec’y Lebryk was asked by DOGE to immediately shut off all USAID payments. He expressed concern about the lack of legal authority to do so, and suggested a less risky approach. He was told by a DOGE dog that he himself could have legal risk if he didn’t comply.
All of this might explain why Lebryk suddenly quit last Friday.
If someone literally showed up to want access to the server room where I work, they’d contact me. And then I’d reach out to people I know to ask if this is legit.
But they wouldn’t do it that way. They’d just access the servers remotely, because they’re servers, and the point of a server is to be accessible to clients on the network that need them. So whoever needed to get access would instead go through the network guys (I’m not with that group, I handle the local IT stuff for a few offices).
Then again, I work for Washington State government, not the federal government. If someone from DOGE came sniffing around they’d be told to pound sand by our governor and/or attorney general.
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/06/doge-treasury-payments-system-access-trump-musk
Limitations have been put.
Cool. Now who enforces this and how?
I imagine it’s as simple as someone at the Treasury Department changing access privileges in an account directory so that they can’t get in the systems anymore.
From here:
The federal judge’s order formalizing the agreement will remain in place until she rules on a preliminary injunction motion filed by the plaintiffs. The injunction asks the court to require Treasury leadership to block DOGE access to the payment systems and protect the data it has already obtained.
Krause, who the lawsuit says is the CEO of a company which owns Citrix and other technology firms, is supervising Elez. Some news outlets have reported that DOGE has full access to the Treasury payment systems and has the ability to write code controlling most payments made by the federal government.
The Treasury Department has denied those claims, asserting in an unattributed letter directed to Congress and posted on the agency’s website that Elez and Krause have read-only privileges. The letter also establishes that Krause is now a Treasury employee and not merely a DOGE worker.
Sure. And who is in charge of the Treasury Dept? What monitoring is there? What accounting is there of what has already been done? And what are the repercussions if Musk, Bessent, or whomever just tells the court to pound sand?
Not trying to be alarmist. Seriously wondering what is going to happen following the countless lawsuits challenging the many apparently illegal/extralegal actions so far.
My question is, what does it matter? What stops Trump from having the Treasury Department itself do exactly what Musk is doing?
I did not understand that from your previous post. I thought you were saying what Treas could do to comply with the Ct order.
Of course, there likely are regs or statutes that restrict access. If we think those still apply. Any Agency policy can simply be voided/replaced.
I did, but I felt it necessary to point out that it probably doesn’t matter. As POTUS, Trump will make sure that compliant people are running each department.
Exactly. It’s not like they can literally do anything they want, but I’m sure they’re going to have full access to your info if they want to. I wonder if anyone considered that you shouldn’t elect someone with multiple felony fraud convictions to run the country.
