Under the executive order, DOGE teams, which “will typically include one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney” will be dispatched to various agencies. They will be granted “access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems,” ostensibly with the goal of streamlining data sharing across federal agencies.
A former USDS employee who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity called the repurposing of the Digital Service an “A+ bureaucratic jiujitsu move.” But, they say, they’re concerned that DOGE’s access to sensitive information could be used to do more than just streamline government operations.
“Is this technical talent going to be pointed toward using data from the federal government to track down opponents?” they ask. “To track down particular populations of interest to this administration for the purposes of either targeting them or singling them out or whatever it might end up being?”
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It appears, however, that the first order of DOGE is to weed out people in agencies that might push back on the Trump administration’s agenda, starting with existing USDS staff, and hire new people.
“DOGE teams have a lawyer, an HR director, and an engineer. If you were looking to identify functions to cut, people to cut, having an HR director there and having a lawyer say, ‘Here’s what we’re allowed to do or not do,’ would be one way that you would facilitate that,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, noting that DOGE’s potential access to federal employee data could put “them in some sort of crosshairs to be fired.”
When Musk took over Twitter, he brought in outside help from his close circle as well as his other companies to transform the company, a move he appears to be repeating.
Who exactly is going to be part of DOGE is a particularly thorny issue because there are technically two DOGEs. One is the permanent organization, the revamped USDS—now the US DOGE Service. The other is a temporary organization, with a termination date of July 4, 2026. Creating this organization means the temporary DOGE can operate under a special set of rules. It can sequester employees from other parts of the government, and can also accept people who want to work for the government as volunteers. Temporary organizations can also hire what are known as special government employees—experts in a given field who can bypass the rigors of the regular federal hiring processes. They’re also not subject to the same transparency requirements as other government employees.
In the best case scenario, this would allow DOGE to move quickly to address issues and fast track necessary talent, as well as build systems that make government services more seamless by facilitating the flow of information and data. But in the worst case, this could mean less transparency around the interests of people working on important government projects, while enabling possible surveillance.