mi ricorda quando dicevo che il potere digitale nelle mani
dell'esecutivo è un nuovo potere che mi fa molta più paura dei GAFAM,
dato che ha il monopolio della forza..
On 02/02/25 22:13, Daniela Tafani wrote:
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Mr. Musk’s representatives at the
so-called Department of Government Efficiency a powerful tool to monitor and
potentially limit government spending.
By Andrew Duehren, Maggie Haberman, Theodore Schleifer and Alan Rappeport
Feb. 1, 2025
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called
Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system
late on Friday, according to three people familiar with the change, handing
Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially
limit government spending.
The new authority follows a standoff this week with a top Treasury official who
had resisted allowing Mr. Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment
system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government. The
official, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was put on leave and then
suddenly retired on Friday after the dispute, according to people familiar with
his exit.
[...]
The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is not a government
department, but a team within the administration. It was put together at Mr.
Trump’s direction by Mr. Musk to fan out across federal agencies seeking ways
to cut spending, reduce the size of the federal work force and bring more
efficiency to the bureaucracy. Most of those working on the initiative were
recruited by Mr. Musk and his aides.
Similar DOGE teams have begun demanding access to data and systems at other
federal agencies, but none of those agencies control the flow of money in the
way the Treasury Department does.
Mr. Bessent granted access to the payments system to a handful of staff members
affiliated with DOGE, including Tom Krause, the chief executive of a Silicon
Valley company, Cloud Software Group, according to one of the people familiar
with the change. Access to the system has historically been closely held
because it includes sensitive personal information about the millions of
Americans who receive Social Security checks, tax refunds and other payments
from the federal government.
A Treasury Department spokesman, a spokeswoman for DOGE and the White House did
not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a process typically run by civil servants, the Treasury Department carries
out payments submitted by agencies across the government, disbursing more than
$5 trillion in fiscal year 2023.
Former officials said the onus was on individual agencies to ensure their
payments are proper, not the relatively small staff at the Treasury Department,
which is responsible for making more than one billion payments per year.
Mr. Lebryk, the career Treasury official who retired on Friday, had resisted
requests from members of Mr. Trump’s transition team for access to the data
last month. After Mr. Trump took office, the White House indicated that he
should be removed from the job and, according to a person familiar with the
matter, Mr. Bessent suggested putting him on leave.
[continua qui:
<https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/us/politics/elon-musk-doge-federal-payments-system.html>]
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