Exclusive: Whistleblower Alleges DOGE May Have Taken Sensitive Labor Data

Summary

**Summary of "Exclusive: Whistleblower Alleges DOGE May Have Taken Sensitive Labor Data"
The NPR Politics Podcast
Release Date: April 16, 2025
Host: Ashley Lopez, Stephen Fowler, Jenna McLaughlin

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Introduction

In the April 16, 2025 episode of The NPR Politics Podcast, hosts Ashley Lopez, Stephen Fowler, and Jenna McLaughlin delve into a startling exclusive report involving allegations against an entity known as DOGE. A whistleblower claims that DOGE improperly accessed sensitive data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and subsequently attempted to cover up these actions. This comprehensive summary captures the key discussions, insights, and conclusions presented in the episode.

Background: Understanding the National Labor Relations Board

The episode begins with Jenna McLaughlin explaining the significance of the NLRB:

“It is a really small independent federal agency, but it's very important for protecting workers' rights. So it investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It helps make sure employees can form unions, that sort of thing.”
– Jenna McLaughlin [01:32]

The NLRB plays a crucial role in safeguarding labor rights, making any unauthorized access to its data particularly concerning.

The Whistleblower: Dan Barulis' Allegations

Ashley Lopez introduces the central figure of the story, whistleblower Dan Barulis:

“His name is Dan Barulis. He works in the IT department for the nlrb and he watches over their cloud system. He essentially alleges that after DOGE arrived, they demanded the God tier access to the system. Essentially said, stay out of our way, don't log anything that we're doing.”
– Jenna McLaughlin [01:53]

Barulis alleges that DOGE obtained “God tier” access—granting them unrestricted control over the NLRB's cloud systems. He noticed unusual activities, including a substantial data spike and the disabling of security tools:

“There was a big spike in data leaving the agency about 10 gigabytes, which is like a giant stack of encyclopedias because all of them are text files. He saw a bunch of security tools turned off. He saw records deleted.”
– Jenna McLaughlin [02:25]

DOGE’s Mandate and Motivations

Stephen Fowler provides context on DOGE's official mandate:

“As you probably know, the DOGE effort has been given this mandate from President Trump to find examples of waste, fraud and abuse, mainly with government spending.”
– Stephen Fowler [03:23]

However, the activities within the NLRB appear divergent from DOGE’s stated objectives, focusing instead on internal labor matters rather than government expenditure. Jenna furthers this point:

"This internal case management system...only has the sensitive information, so it's hard to get your head around the idea that they might have thought it was something else.”
– Jenna McLaughlin [04:25]

Implications and Broader Concerns

Stephen Fowler expands on the broader implications of DOGE’s access:

“There are more than a dozen federal court cases... concerns over access to Social Security Administration data... access to personnel files at the Office of Personnel Management... DOGE people being given carte blanche to do that in real time. So this is... the most visible example of that.”
– Stephen Fowler [09:06]

The episode highlights the potential risks of such extensive data access, echoing concerns reminiscent of the Privacy Act of 1974.

Attempts to Cover Up and Subsequent Actions

Jenna discusses the alleged cover-up efforts by DOGE:

“They did do a pretty good job at getting rid of information that would really link them to this removal of data.”
– Jenna McLaughlin [07:27]

Despite these efforts, Barulis managed to uncover evidence, prompting investigations. Following the reporting:

“After Dan raised some of his concerns internally, he received a letter that was taped to his door...included pictures of him walking his dog from overhead. His lawyer said that it appears to be from a drone.”
– Jenna McLaughlin [11:26]

This intimidation tactic underscores the hostile environment for whistleblowers.

Political and Legal Repercussions

The episode details the political fallout, including actions from Congress:

“The ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Gerry Connolly of Virginia, sent a letter to the inspectors general... asking about Doge's access and if anything was deleted.”
– Stephen Fowler [12:04]

Additionally, the discovery of suspicious code on GitHub related to the NLRB's case management system has raised red flags:

“We know what that means. And so there are congressional questions. There are these ongoing court cases. So this is the tip of this particular iceberg.”
– Stephen Fowler [12:58]

Whistleblower’s Hopes and Future Investigations

In an exclusive interview, Barulis expressed his aspirations for the outcome of these revelations:

“His hope is that it inspires other people to speak up, that it gets congressional investigators involved, that it gets agencies with more investigative resources involved... He just wants this to be fully investigated, and he wants the systems to be secure.”
– Jenna McLaughlin [13:02]

Conclusion: A Call for Accountability

The episode concludes by emphasizing the need for thorough investigations into DOGE’s actions and the protection of sensitive government data. The hosts underscore the importance of Barulis’ courage in coming forward and the broader implications for government transparency and cybersecurity.

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Key Takeaways

• Swath of Sensitive Data at Risk: DOGE’s unauthorized access to the NLRB’s case management system poses significant threats to labor rights and sensitive information.

• Potential Misalignment with Mandate: DOGE's actions within the NLRB appear to diverge from its official mandate of combating waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending.

• Intimidation of Whistleblowers: The harassment of Dan Barulis highlights the dangers faced by individuals exposing governmental malfeasance.

• Wider Implications for Government Data Security: Multiple federal agencies face similar unauthorized access concerns, indicating systemic vulnerabilities.

• Political Response and Ongoing Investigations: Congressional inquiries and court cases are underway to address and rectify DOGE’s overreach and data mishandling.

Notable Quotes

• Jenna McLaughlin [01:32]: “It is a really small independent federal agency, but it's very important for protecting workers' rights.”

• Jenna McLaughlin [02:25]: “He saw a bunch of security tools turned off. He saw records deleted. Just a lot of stuff that really got his spidey senses tingling after 20 or some odd years in it.”

• Stephen Fowler [03:23]: “DOGE effort has been given this mandate from President Trump to find examples of waste, fraud and abuse, mainly with government spending.”

• Stephen Fowler [09:06]: “DOGE people being given carte blanche to do that in real time. So this is... the most visible example of that.”

• Jenna McLaughlin [11:26]: “It appears to be from a drone. So that was terrifying.”

• Jenna McLaughlin [13:02]: “He just wants this to be fully investigated, and he wants the systems to be secure.”

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This episode of The NPR Politics Podcast sheds light on critical issues surrounding government data security, the potential overreach of entities like DOGE, and the imperative to protect and empower whistleblowers. The detailed reporting by NPR underscores the necessity for accountability and robust investigative measures to safeguard public institutions.

Transcript

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[Ashley Lopez]

Hey there. This is Sarah Mosby from St. Louis, Missouri. I'm currently in Tupelo, Mississippi, on my way to Birmingham, Alabama to see my best friend, Paige. This podcast was recorded at 1:20pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll be reunited with my very best friend.

[NPR Announcer]

Thanks.

[Ashley Lopez]

Enjoy the show. I love that so much. Long distance friendships are also bad. I know, like, romantic relationships get all the attention on this, but it's tough.

[Stephen Fowler]

Long distance car rides are also good for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

[Ashley Lopez]

Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

[Stephen Fowler]

I'm Stephen Fowler. I also cover politics.

[Jenna McLaughlin]

And I'm Jenna McLaughlin. I cover cybersecurity.

[Ashley Lopez]

And today on the show, an NPR exclusive. A whistleblower alleges the entity known as DOGE may have improperly accessed data from the National Labor Relations Board and then tried to cover it up. Jenna, like, let's first start with the basics here. What is the National Labor Relations Board and what is their role in government?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

Yeah, it is a really small independent federal agency, but it's very important for protecting workers rights. So it investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It helps make sure employees can form unions, that sort of thing.

[Ashley Lopez]

All right, so let's talk about this whistleblower. First of all, who is he and what is he alleging here?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

His name is Dan Barulis. He works in the IT department for the nlrb and he watches over their cloud system. He essentially alleges that after DOGE arrived, they demanded the God tier access to the system. Essentially said, stay out of our way, don't log anything that we're doing. And after that, once they had already left, Dan really got interested in what they had been doing and wanted to determine whether or not there were any security problems that happened. So there was a big spike in data leaving the agency about 10 gigabytes, which is like a giant stack of encyclopedias because all of them are text files. He saw a bunch of security tools turned off. He saw records deleted. Just a lot of stuff that really got his spidey senses tingling after 20 or some odd years in it, yeah.

[Ashley Lopez]

And when you say God tier, you mean like, just like widespread info? Like pretty much every access to everything?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

Not even just access. It means that they can alter, remove, do anything they want in the system? Essentially, yeah.

[Ashley Lopez]

And, Jenna, why would NLRB records be of interest to anyone? Like, what's in there?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

So one of the main systems we were interested in looking at is the case management system, where Dan said that he did see a giant spike in data leaving. And what's in there is internal union organizing stuff, lists of people interested in forming a union, lawyers, notes of ongoing unfair labor practice complaints, even some corporate secrets when companies actually cooperate with some of these investigative cases.

[Stephen Fowler]

And, Ashley, I just want to zoom out just a little bit here. As you probably know, the DOGE effort has been given this mandate from President Trump to find examples of waste, fraud and abuse, mainly with government spending. And everything that you just heard Jenna describe about what this case management system does doesn't really sound like waste, fraud or abuse. And so that is something that makes this a little bit different from DOGE going through every single federal agency and office that they've gone through so far.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah, Right. It's like the inner workings of private business and less about government spending, which is what DOGE is purportedly tasked with looking at. Right?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

Yeah. I mean, even in your most charitable interpretation, it's possible that they didn't know what they were taking. But this internal case management system, Dan described it, kind of a Nucleus. It's. It's only has the sensitive information, so it's hard to get your head around the idea that they might have thought it was something else.

[Stephen Fowler]

It's also worth pointing out that several of Elon Musk's companies are before the NLRB for unfair labor practice allegations. Also, several companies that are competitors of Musk's have sensitive data embedded in this system. So there is the overall umbrella of DOGE access concerns that people have about access to government data and financial information and other things on everyday Americans. Then you have this entirely separate category here of this data, this agency, this manner and method of looking at things seems to have a purpose that primarily benefits the business interests of Elon Musk's, separate from Trump's remaking of the federal government.

[Jenna McLaughlin]

Yeah. And it's worth mentioning that some of the lawyers who represented SpaceX in a case arguing that the NLRB structure is unconstitutional now have government jobs in labor agencies.

[Ashley Lopez]

Oh, wow. Well, I mean, do we have a sense, though, of why DOGE is looking at the nlrb? I mean, have we heard anything from Musk or that group?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

We haven't seen one. The White House did respond to our reporting yesterday evening after we published they said that it's months old news that President Trump signed an executive order to hire Doge and employees and coordinate data sharing. They said that that included the NLRB and that, you know, they're looking for waste, fraud and abuse and they didn't really share much else.

[Ashley Lopez]

Okay, time for a quick break. More in a moment.

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[Ashley Lopez]

And we're back. Jenna, the whistleblower here alleges that Doge has tried to cover up its actions at the nlrb. Why does that matter? And I mean, were they pretty successful at first at this?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

Yeah. So, I mean, clearly not entirely successful because Perlis was able to uncover some of the evidence of this. But they did do a pretty good job at getting rid of information that would really link them to this removal of data and that would even allow the NLRB to know what data they took. So in that way, yes, they were successful. And that's a big problem because if they did go hunting for specific data that would be advantageous to Elon Musk, then that would be a big red flag that I think a lot of investigators from Congress to law enforcement to the Office of Special Counsel would be really interested in.

[Stephen Fowler]

This is where it really gets back to the question about there being a good faith Argument for visiting. You know, a lot of the other audits and a lot of the other things, things that DOGE has done has mostly been publicized. You know, they've got that wall of savings that hasn't been fully accurate, but there is a public accounting of sorts of the things that have been done. You don't see that in this case. And really, it is an outlier in some ways from the DOGE operations across the federal government in other ways. But it also ties into reporting that we've done kind of tying together the different pieces of how DOGE has data at these places. That is concerning.

[Ashley Lopez]

Well, I mean, Stephen, as you've mentioned, DOGE has visited other agencies. Them gathering information on what other agencies have been up to is not new. But I wonder how this lines up with the other work they've been doing in agencies across the federal government.

[Stephen Fowler]

There are more than a dozen federal court cases, Ashley, that cover DOGE access across different agencies. There's concerns over access to Social Security Administration data. There's concerns over access to the treasury payment systems that are the backbones of trillions of dollars in federal spending. There's concerns over access to personnel files at the Office of Personnel Management, basically like the HR backbone of the federal government. And in isolation, these different cases allege similar things and talk about this person and this access. But we were able to kind of piece together a small number of DOGE staffers being given unprecedented access to unlimited information at all of these federal agencies, and in many cases, having access to multiple agencies worth of data. So 50 years ago, when the Privacy act of 1974 was put into law by Congress, they expressed concerns about these digital databases and any unelected bureaucrat being able to compile a dossier on you by combining this agency's data here with that agency's data here. And now in 2025, you have doge people being given carte blanche to do that in real time. So this is, you know, the most visible example of that that we've seen so far, because all of these court cases have taken time to go through. And this is a whistleblower disclosure. But this is not an isolated incident.

[Jenna McLaughlin]

Yeah. And I mean, Ashley, I think going back to the good faith argument, from just a pure cybersecurity standards perspective, there's no good reason. Most of the experts that I spoke to said to turn off logs. There's absolutely no reason you would do that if you were actually looking to do a good job in terms of working on systems. Turning off logs is a cardinal sin. To cybersecurity professionals, because those things allow them to troubleshoot errors. It lets them know what went wrong, whether that was a benign error or potentially even a hacker accessing the system through a vulnerability.

[Ashley Lopez]

Well, Jenna, what has happened since your reporting?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

Actually, in the midst of my reporting, after Dan raised some of his concerns internally, he received a letter that was taped to his door physically that essentially had a bunch of personally identifying information, stuff that's next to impossible to find online. Believe me, I tried and sort of threatened him and included pictures of him walking his dog from overhead. His lawyer said that it appears to be from a drone. So that was terrifying. Law enforcement's looking into it. But, I mean, I think that's a crazy development as far as just the environment that currently exists for people that want to be whistleblowers.

[Stephen Fowler]

And in the aftermath of the reporting, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Gerry Connolly of Virginia, sent a letter to the inspectors general of the NLRB and the Department of Labor asking a lot of questions that were raised by Jenna's reporting, asking about Doge's access and if anything was deleted. And, you know, what's the meaning of this code that was found briefly on a GitHub page, which is like code repositories with something called NX Gen B door, extract, annexgen being the name of the case management system. B door, potentially meaning backdoor and extract. Well, we know what that means. And so there are congressional questions. There are these ongoing court cases. So this is the tip of this particular iceberg.

[Ashley Lopez]

So what does Burles hope comes of all of this? Like, what is he hoping happens next?

[Jenna McLaughlin]

Yeah, so we spoke to him in an exclusive interview, and he said that his hope is that it inspires other people to speak up, that it gets congressional investigators involved, that it gets agencies with more investigative resources involved, whether that's FBI or cisa, which is the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity and Infrastructure security agency. He just wants this to be fully investigated. And he said multiple times that he hopes he's wrong, that, you know, none of this actually is malicious or concerning. He doesn't think that he is wrong, but. But he hopes that he is. So he just wants this to be fully investigated, and he wants, you know, the systems to be secure.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. All right, let's leave it there for today. And if you have any information you want to share with our reporters about Doge and what it may be doing, you can find information on how to contact them in our episode Notes. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

[Stephen Fowler]

I'm Stephen Powler. I also cover politics.

[Jenna McLaughlin]

And I'm Jenna McLaughlin. I cover cybersecurity.

[Ashley Lopez]

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

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