Press Releases

LOWELL, MA – Today, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03) and House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (CA-02) urged Department of Interior Secretary Burgum to revoke DOGE officials’ access to his agency’s critical technology systems and sensitive data.

“We are deeply concerned by recent reports that you provided at least three DOGE-affiliated individuals—Tyler Hassen, Stephanie Holmes, and Katrine Trampe—with unfettered access to the IBC’s FPPS system,” the lawmakers wrote. “These reports indicate that you granted this access despite significant concerns expressed by senior career DOI officials, including the Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer, who raised alarms in a risk assessment memorandum. According to the memorandum, DOGE’s access requests were unprecedented and posed significant cybersecurity, operational, and legal risks--including potential violations of the Privacy Act of 1974, which may carry criminal penalties. Rather than addressing these concerns, you reportedly placed these officials on administrative leave and later terminated them.”

In March, public reporting indicated that staffers affiliated with DOGE received access to critical technology systems at DOI. Secretary Burgum decided to grant unprecedented access to at least three DOGE officials against the objections of senior career staffers, who were summarily placed on administrative leave and later terminated. One of these systems is the Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS), which stores troves of sensitive personnel data and supports the payroll operations of more than 50 agencies.

In the lawmakers’ letter, they warn about the major cybersecurity and privacy risks that access to systems including FPPS needlessly creates. They also call attention to the risk of imperiling the operations of dozens of agencies that rely on shared software systems built and maintained by DOI.

“That level of access, reportedly exceeding even that of DOI’s Chief Information Officer (CIO), is

deeply troubling. It creates exactly the kind of cybersecurity, operational, and privacy vulnerabilities that the experienced civil servants warned about in their risk assessment memo and sought to prevent. These individuals now have access that could allow, among other things, the exfiltration of data to unknown and unprotected destinations, the deletion of records and logs, the modification of system code or data, and the ability to grant the same capabilities to others,” the lawmakers warned.

A copy of the letter sent today can be accessed HERE.

This request builds on Trahan’s investigation into the Trump Administration’s unprecedented attempt to centralize Americans’ personal data, including information held by federal agencies like the Treasury Department and the National Labor Relations Board as well as state-held data used to administer benefits programs like SNAP and Medicaid. In March, Trahan announced that she will be introducing legislation to rewrite the Privacy Act for the first time since its passage in 1974.

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