DOGE Dives Into Core National Defense and Data Systems Across Government

I don’t like to think in conspiratorial ways. But DOGE currently has far deeper and far more extensive access to US government computer systems – and far deeper into the national security space – than is conceivably necessary for anything related to their notional brief and goals. I don’t just mean this about the front-facing notional goals of making the federal government ‘efficient’. I mean it as well in the most sinister versions of the group’s goals – hollowing out the federal bureaucracy, destroying oversight agencies which pose threats to Musk’s business interests, building centralized command and control over budgets, employment, personal data, etc. etc.
WIRED is now reporting that two DOGE operatives, including the 19 year old Edward Coristine (aka “Big Balls”), have now gained access to the computer systems of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the agency charged with the defense of the federal government’s civilian computer networks as well as helping organizing the defense of the country’s critical infrastructure.
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