DHS Tries to Seize Massive Government Database With Americans’ Info

The Department of Homeland Security wants access to the Federal Parent Locator Service, which is considered to be the government’s largest, most detailed database, ProPublica reports.

The database, which Bethanne Barnes of the Administration for Children and Families called “the most powerful people-finder system that the U.S. government has,” exists so that the government can locate parents who owe child support if they move states or change their employment status. It holds the name, Social Security number, address, and pay of every single employed person in the country.

The Locator Service also holds the names of every single child involved in a child support case, along with their gender, birth date, Social Security number, and family members. It also notes if they or their mother have experienced domestic violence—something that potential abusers within law enforcement would be able to see if given access to the database.

Child support workers at the state level have expressed concern that employers will no longer report new hire information to them out of fear of DHS retribution, which in turn will bog down the child support system and hurt children and their parents in the process.

“And if we’re not learning from employers when a parent who owes child support gets a new job, who loses in that situation?” said Kate Cooper Richardson, Oregon’s former child support program lead. “The one in five U.S. children who rely on consistent and regular child support.”

It’s up to the Department of Health and Human Services to approve this access request. It has yet to comment.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has left her apartment in Washington, D.C., and moved to a military base in the area after reportedly facing threats from drug cartels and critics of her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, reports that the move took place within the last month and that federal law enforcement saw an uptick in criticism and threats against Bondi. These threats increased after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was abducted in January. Bondi joins other Trump administration officials who have moved to military housing, including Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, and Navy Secretary John Phelan.

The Trump administration has not disclosed whether any of these officials are paying for their new accommodations, although a spokesperson for Noem, the outgoing Homeland Security secretary, told the Times last year that she was paying “fair-market rent.”

Many of these officials were targeted by protesters upset with the Trump administration’s policies. At his previous residence in Arlington, Virginia, Miller was met with organized protests from a group called Arlington Neighbors United, which put up posters with his address alleging he’d committed “crimes against humanity” and wrote chalk messages on the sidewalk in front of his house saying that “Miller is preying on families.”

These moves to military bases are a hefty cost to taxpayers. Hegseth’s home on “Generals’ Row” at Fort McNair reportedly needed more than $137,000 in renovations before he could move in. Plus, military resources have to be expended to keep political appointees protected on the bases, while taking away homes from service members. If these Trump officials have angered the public enough that they can’t live among them, perhaps they should reexamine whether the administration’s policies are actually welcomed by the people they are supposed to be serving.

Iran was laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz while Donald Trump declared he was thinking of taking it over.

At least two people familiar with U.S. intelligence told CNN Tuesday that Iran began laying mines in recent days, but noted that the operation is still in an early phase. They estimated that Iran has so far only laid a few dozen mines and still retains upward of 80 percent to 90 percent of its mine layers, allowing for potentially hundreds of more mine placements within the bottleneck waterway, reported CNN.

The news broke hours after Trump told CBS News that he felt the war was “very complete” and was “thinking about taking [the Strait of Hormuz] over” as a result.

The president’s tune changed very quickly after reports on Iran’s mine operation began to circulate.

“If Iran has put out any mines in the Hormuz Strait, and we have no reports of them doing so, we want them removed, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith, the Military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before. If, on the other hand, they remove what may have been placed, it will be a giant step in the right direction!”

Minutes later, Trump issued another statement declaring that U.S. forces had “hit and completely destroyed” 10 inactive mine-laying boats in the area.

Situated between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait of Hormuz is the single most important energy transit point in the world, funneling approximately one-fifth of all crude oil shipments. Tehran has long threatened to close off the strait if Iran were under attack, effectively sealing the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the rest of the open ocean.

The U.S. could be caught in a difficult position if Iran chooses to escalate its mine-laying operation. In January, the Navy decommissioned four Avengers-class mine countermeasures ships that were stationed in the Persian Gulf, reported The War Zone at the time. Despite plans to scrap the boats, the vessels were transported to Philadelphia via a heavy-lift vessel. It was not clear why they were not retained and broken down in the region.

The Navy has deferred the responsibility of mine hunting to a trio of Independence-class littoral combat ships, or LCSs, commonly referred to as “little crappy ships.” Three littoral combat ships, the USS Santa Barbara, the USS Canberra, and the USS Tulsa, are operating near the strait.

The LCSs were constructed for coastal support and combat, but proved neither dependable enough nor strong enough for that mission, lacking adequate firepower. They were also slated for retirement before the war began, Task and Purpose reported in February.

It remains to be seen if the LCSs are capable of countering Iran’s mine operation. The two ship classes are constructed entirely differently: The newer ones feature a metal hull, while the older ships were built with fiberglass-coated wooden hulls to reduce vulnerability. And two of the three LCSs were fitted with operational mine countermeasure packages just last year “after more than a decade of fits, starts, and failed systems,” reported USNI News.

Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers about how Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to an eight-day-old media company.

In a series of letters Tuesday, Senators Richard Blumenthal and Peter Welch requested information and documents from three companies with ties to Noem’s inner circle. The organizations had received a total of $220 million to make a slate of anti-immigrant ads, the backlash to which likely contributed to Noem’s firing earlier this month.

The first letter was to Safe America Media, a company that received a $143 million no-bid contract to produce a number of advertisements for DHS. It was later reported that the company had only been formed eight days before it won the nine-figure government contract.

“As far as we can tell, Safe America Media has no office, no website, and no social media presence,” the lawmakers wrote to Michael McElwain, a veteran Republican operative who appeared to own the property associated with the company.

The second letter was to the Strategy Group, which received a subcontract to work on Safe America Media’s ad campaign, receiving a total of $226,137 for five film shoots, 45 video, and six radio ad spots.

Strategy Group CEO Benjamin Yoho is married to Tricia McLaughlin, a former spokesperson for DHS who departed her role earlier this year. Yoho has a long-standing relationship with Noem, having produced advertisements for her 2022 gubernatorial campaign and beyond. The outgoing secretary was reportedly put in touch with the agency by her alleged paramour and chief adviser, Corey Lewandowski.

McLaughlin claimed on social media that neither Yoho nor the Strategy Group “have ever had a contract with DHS.” But in their letter, Welch and Blumenthal noted that the Strategy Group admitted that it had indeed received a subcontract.

The third letter was to Jay Connaughton, the managing partner at People Who Think, a marketing consulting firm that received a $77 million no-bid contract to produce the same slate of ads. Connaughton is also connected to Lewandowski; the two worked together on Louisiana Governor Jeff Landy’s 2023 campaign.

The lawmakers requested copies of contracts, subcontracts, and invoices, as well as all correspondence between the companies and DHS.

An employee at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency may have taken Social Security data with him to a new job, in what would be a major security breach.

The Washington Post reports that the Social Security Administration’s inspector general is looking into a whistleblower complaint that a former DOGE software engineer claimed he had access to two sensitive SSA databases and was planning to share the information with a private employer. Seventy million Americans rely on the SSA, but hundreds of millions are alleged to be affected.

The inspector general told Congress and the Government Accountability Office about the investigation, and the whistleblower spoke with the Post anonymously out of fear of retaliation. The complaint reportedly states that the former DOGE employee worked at the SSA last year before moving to a government contractor in October. He allegedly told several of his co-workers that he had two restricted databases containing U.S. citizens’ private information, with at least one on a thumb drive.

The databases, named “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” contain the Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names of over 500 million living and dead Americans. The complaint doesn’t specifically state when the engineer told his co-workers about the databases, but one alleged event took place in January, when the complaint was filed with the inspector general.

The engineer allegedly told the whistleblower that he needed help transferring data from the thumb drive to a personal computer to “sanitize” the data before using it at the company. He then told colleagues that once personal details were scrubbed, he wanted to upload it to his company’s systems. He said to a colleague, who refused to help him out of legal concerns, that he expected a pardon from President Trump if his actions were illegal.

The SSA and the engineer’s company, when contacted by the Post, hadn’t heard of the complaint. They then reportedly looked into the allegations but didn’t find any supporting evidence.

Congressional Democrats informed about the whistleblower complaint were alarmed at the security implications of such a massive data breach.

“Not only has an ex-DOGE bro been accused of running around with the Social Security information of every American on a flash drive, he also may have the ability to edit and manipulate data at the Social Security Administration at will,” said Representative Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in a statement. “This is dangerous and outrageous, and Oversight Committee Democrats will fight for transparency and accountability.”

Last year, DOGE employees gained alarming access to sensitive information across government agencies, not just in the SSA. That information could be used for terrifying purposes, including by corporations and foreign actors. If this whistleblower complaint is accurate, the entire country could be at risk.