Controversial OPM email server operates 'entirely' on government computers, agency says
The controversial email system used by Elon Musk and his associates to simultaneously contact all federal employees for the first time operates "entirely on government computers" and contrary to news reports does not use a non-government server, officials with the Office of Personnel Management said in a court filing Wednesday.
An attorney representing unnamed OPM employees asked a judge on Jan. 27 to issue a temporary restraining order halting the system as it represented a grave security risk to roughly 2 million executive branch and judicial branch employees, along with an unknown number of contractors.
The email system was developed and installed without the required Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), Kelly McClanahan, the executive director of the National Security Counselors publicinterest law firm, argued in a complaint.
The PIA was not necessary since the system only deals with federal employee data, government lawyers said in a February 5 court filing, which included a PIA dated February 5 that said the system, dubbed the "Government-Wide Email System (GWES)," collects federal employee names, their government email addresses, and "short, voluntary email responses.
The filing comes amid growing concern that Musk and his associates are flouting security protocols when handling personal information and data as they work to cut staff acrossthe U.S. government.
The Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, along with Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, on Wednesday demanded answers from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles about how the White House has vetted staff working on Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts, including the OPM email system, and how security considerations have factored in.
"No information has been provided to Congress or the public as to who has been formally hired under DOGE, under what authority or regulations DOGE is operating, or how DOGE isvetting and monitoring its staff and representatives before providing them with seemingly unfettered access to classified materials and Americans’ personal information," the senatorssaid in a letter.
The PIA listed Senior Advisor to the Director Riccardo Biasini as the system's contact point and was signed by Greg Hogan, the agency's chief information officer. Biasini is a former engineer at Tesla and most recently a director at The Boring Company, Musk's tunnel-building operation in Las Vegas.
It's not clear whether the "government computers" are new or existing OPM infrastructure. An OPM spokesperson declined to comment.
McClanahan argued the system contains "vast quantities" of personally identifiable information "which are more susceptible to cyberattacks than the pre-existing OPM systems.”
The suit cited an anonymous Reddit post saying someone "walked into our building and plugged in an email server to our network" to send the emails. An anonymous OPM staffer told the Musk Watch newsletter on Feb. 3 that the server was "a piece of commercial hardware they believed was not obtained through the proper federal procurement process."
McClanahan did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.Contributing: Karen Freifeld, Reuters.