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The DOGE employees, who are effectively led by White House adviser and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB's internal systems.
But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.
Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
The whistleblower's account is corroborated by internal documentation and was reviewed by 11 technical experts across other government agencies and the private sector. In total, NPR spoke to over 30 sources across the government, the private sector, the labor movement, cybersecurity and law enforcement who spoke to their own concerns about how DOGE and the Trump administration might be handling sensitive data, and the implications for its exposure. Much of the following account comes from the whistleblower's official disclosure and interviews with NPR.
But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.
Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
The whistleblower's account is corroborated by internal documentation and was reviewed by 11 technical experts across other government agencies and the private sector. In total, NPR spoke to over 30 sources across the government, the private sector, the labor movement, cybersecurity and law enforcement who spoke to their own concerns about how DOGE and the Trump administration might be handling sensitive data, and the implications for its exposure. Much of the following account comes from the whistleblower's official disclosure and interviews with NPR.
