Politics

Unions sue to stop DOGE from accessing federal data

Published

1 year ago

February 11, 2025

A leading teachers’ union and allied labor groups sued three Trump administration agencies on Monday to halt billionaire Elon Musk’s government-efficiency operation from accessing sensitive federal data.

The American Federation of Teachers, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the National Federation of Federal Employees filed suit in a Maryland federal court, alleging that the Treasury Department has disclosed the contents of a government system that includes records on Americans’ tax refunds and Social Security benefits.

The labor groups further accused the Education Department of improperly disclosing information in its national student loan data system that carries sensitive financial records for nearly 43 million borrowers. And they accuse the federal Office of Personnel Management of allowing Musk’s representatives access to information on millions of current and former federal employees, plus federal job applicants.

The legal complaint backed by the nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy and the Munger, Tolles & Olson law firm amounts to yet another challenge to the sweeping access and authority granted since Trump’s inauguration to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

“Steamrolling into sensitive government record systems threatens to upend how these critical systems are maintained and compromises the safety and security of personal identifying information for Americans all across the country,” the lawsuit alleged.

“It also violates federal law,” said the lawsuit, which alleges the government disclosures to Musk’s operation break the federal Privacy Act of 1974.

Representatives for the Education Department, Treasury Department, and Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The complaint asks a federal judge to prohibit the government agencies from allowing DOGE representatives further access to sensitive information — and requires the Trump administration “to retrieve or ensure the destruction of any copies of any records that were unlawfully disclosed” among other requests.

“Elon Musk and his minions are stealing Americans’ private personal and financial data in one of the biggest data hacks in U.S. history,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement on Monday. “I suspect no one who voted for Donald Trump thought he would allow Musk permission to invade their privacy. This is a breach of our fundamental freedoms.”

Musk’s DOGE in the past few weeks had begun a wholesale effort to cut parts of the federal government, including USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Education Department.

“Government agencies are not private entities that billionaires can simply buy and rummage through,” IAM Union International President Brian Bryant said in a statement. “Congressional oversight, advocacy and voting are how we make government work for us, not reckless takeovers that put the personal data of millions of Americans into the hands of unqualified, unvetted political operatives.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

7 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”