Washington (AP) – Democrats defend themselves against Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency because she draws attention to the educational department. Legislators are concerned about the access of DOGE’s internal systems that contain personal data over ten million Americans.
In a letter to the incumbent education secretary, a group of Democrats tries to intervene because Doge receives increasing access to student loan databases and other systems. Democrats fear that the basis for taking over the attempt by Musk to close the US Agency for International Development could set up. The letter asked for details about DGE’s work and promised to fight every attempt to close the educational department.
Democrats, including the California MP Mark Takano, planned to appear in the Washington headquarters of the department on Friday and demanded a meeting with leaders appointed by President Donald Trump.
The department was in turmoil when Trump, a Republican, was on his way to the abolition of the Republican. The White House is considering an executive order that imposes the department as far as possible to the education secretary and asks the congress to completely cancel it. Dozens of employees were put on a paid vacation with little explanation, and Doge’s workers have started to search the department’s records in order to collect the expenses.
Musks Doge team has already been given access to a database that teaches personal data about millions of students and parents with federal loans with federal loans, so two people with knowledge of the problem. One of them, an employee of departments, said that a representative of Doge had requested access more than a week ago. A third person said that Doge would have access to the department’s website on Friday, so that Musk’s employees would change the text on any page or make the website offline.
The people spoke out of fear of reprisals about the state of anonymity.
In a federal action submitted on Friday, the access from Doge to Financial Aid Systems for Students is blocked. It violates the data protection rights of millions of borrowers of the federal loan. It was submitted by the student defense of the Advocacy Group on behalf of the Student Association of the University of California.
It is said that Doge could now have access to social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, birth data and contact information for borrowers from student loans. The database also houses information about the parents of dependent credit applicants, including citizenship status and income information.
The lawsuit states that it is an “enormous and unprecedented” invasion of privacy for more than 42 million people whose personal data is stored in the federal government’s federal aid systems. It is said that these people trust the department with their information when they applied for federal loans and grants or filled out the FAFSA student -AID form.
The educational department said that Doge helps him to return to personal work, to restore the accountability for employees and to reform the attitude process in order to concentrate on merit. It said that there is “nothing inappropriate or shameful.
“The Doge employees are federal employees,” said the department in a statement. “They have been sworn in, have the necessary background tests and releases and focus on making the department more cost -effective, effective and accountable for taxpayers.”
Trump campaigned for a promise to close the department and claimed that it had been infiltrated by “radicals, zealers and Marxists”. He nominated the professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon as his education secretary and joked at a press conference on Tuesday that he wanted to “get out of the job”.
But Trump’s promise collides with the reality that the existence of the department and most expenses are arranged by the congress. It is unclear whether Trump could gather the political support for the abolition of the department, which some Republicans have occasionally tried, but have never gained broad political popularity.
The White House alleviated its rhetoric on Thursday when the press spokesman Karoline Leavitt said Trump and his team are looking for options to “reduce the size of the Ministry of Education, if not completely abolish”.
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