Charles Borges, the chief knowledge officer on the Social Safety Administration, resigned Friday — days after submitting a whistleblower criticism about Division of Authorities Effectivity workers on the SSA.
He stated within the criticism that the DOGE workers had uploaded a duplicate of your entire nation’s Social Safety info to a “susceptible cloud atmosphere.” Borges’ resignation from the SSA was confirmed by the Authorities Accountability Challenge, which is offering his authorized illustration.
A Social Safety Administration spokesperson refuted the declare in a press release, saying that the information referenced had been “walled off” from the web, and the SSA is “not conscious of any compromise to this atmosphere.”
“The info referenced within the criticism is saved in a long-standing atmosphere utilized by SSA and walled off from the web,” the spokesperson stated.
In June, the Supreme Courtroom quickly lifted a decrease courtroom’s injunction and cleared the way in which to permit DOGE to entry delicate Social Safety info. Two labor unions and an advocacy group had filed a criticism claiming that permitting the entry would violate the Privateness Act and a federal regulation. A decrease courtroom agreed with the plaintiffs and issued an injunction, and an appellate courtroom additionally declined to raise the keep. Solicitor Normal D. John Sauer then appealed to the Supreme Courtroom, arguing that the injunction was forcing the chief department to cease federal workers tasked with modernizing authorities methods from accessing the information contained inside them.
In Borges’ resignation letter, despatched Friday to SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano, he wrote that he was resigning involuntarily due to “SSA’s actions towards me, which make my duties not possible to carry out legally and ethically.” He stated his departure constituted a “constructive discharge.”
Borges stated in his letter that he has confronted retaliation since he reported his issues internally and subsequently submitted his whistleblower criticism. “I’ve suffered exclusion, isolation, inner strife, and a tradition of worry, making a hostile work atmosphere and making work circumstances insupportable,” he wrote.
He alleged that “newly put in management” within the IT and government workplaces at SSA “created a tradition of panic and dread, with minimal info sharing, frequent discussions on worker termination.” And Borges claimed that repeated requests for visibility into actions he discovered questionable had been “rebuffed or ignored by company management.”
Andrea Meza, a GAP lawyer representing Borges, stated in a assertion that Borges “not felt that he may proceed to work for the Social Safety Administration in good conscience given what he had witnessed.” Meza stated Borges “will proceed to work with the right oversight our bodies.”
Borges had served as SSA’s chief knowledge officer since January. Earlier than that, he labored on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and was a White Home Presidential Innovation fellow through the Biden administration, in line with LinkedIn. He had additionally served in knowledge dealing with roles within the Naval Air Warfare Middle Plane Division and the Naval Air Techniques Command.
On LinkedIn Friday, he wrote, “It’s by no means unsuitable to be morally and ethically proper with your self.”
Requested about Borges, an SSA spokesperson declined to touch upon personnel issues.
