America Under Siege

 

America is under siege, but not by foreign armies or rogue terrorists. Instead, the threat is coming from inside the house: unelected billionaires who are quietly hijacking our democratic institutions from within.  Although it’s entirely possible that they are collaborating with foreign autocrats, including Vladimir Putin, who are also billionaires and thus share their unique authoritarian worldview. And thanks to the bravery of a whistleblower named Daniel Berulis, we now have a window into what may well be one of the most brazen and dangerous power grabs in American history. 

This isn’t cheap or even ordinary corruption: this is the sort of thing that happens in Third World countries, like when Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines used cronies and spies to infiltrate government agencies and neutralize political opponents, or when Vladimir Putin installed former KGB allies into key Russian institutions to crush whistleblowers and rig judicial outcomes, or when Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales dismantled anti-corruption agencies and handed sensitive state information to business elites. 

It’s the sort of corruption that destroys democracies from the inside out.

Berulis risked his career, his safety, even his life to reveal what’s happening inside Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE — a name that sounds innocuous enough, until you understand what they’re actually doing. DOGE, according to Berulis’ bombshell disclosure, managed to breach the National Labor Relations Board’s computer systems and extract what he described as “the equivalent to a section of the New York Public Library” in sensitive data. This isn’t just bureaucratic overreach — it’s a digital smash-and-grab, right out of the authoritarian playbook. 

Make no mistake: this is not some crackpot theory. Shortly after DOGE operatives created accounts inside the NLRB system, a login attempt came from a Russian IP address using one of those accounts — with the correct credentials. Within minutes of the breach, the data may have already been in the hands of the Putin government. 

That’s the same Vladimir Putin who press reports say has been in regular telephone contact with both Donald Trump and Elon Musk for the past two years. What’s being looted here isn’t just random bureaucratic files. We’re talking about the private information of whistleblowers, union organizers, witnesses in federal cases, proprietary corporate data, and labor rights enforcement strategies. Including complaints and complainants against Elon Musk’s companies.

In other words, the raw materials for dismantling organized labor in America — and for targeting, harassing, or discrediting anyone trying to stand up to corporate power, including Elon Musk’s multiple efforts to stop or break unionization attempts in his own companies.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s the naked truth, verified by a growing number of insiders and corroborated by NPR, which reports that at least eleven government officials and staffers have confirmed their fears about DOGE’s data exfiltration campaign.

Here’s the conflict of interest that should make every American’s hair stand on end: Elon Musk’s companies — Tesla, SpaceX, and X — were themselves under investigation by the NLRB for alleged labor violations. At least until Musk’s underlings fired the people investigating him and his companies.

Musk now has his own handpicked operatives inside the very agency tasked with holding him accountable. It’s like giving the bank robber a master key to the bank and letting him wander the halls at night. It’s a grotesque perversion of the rule of law, a corruption of the most fundamental principle of American justice that no one is above the law.

And if the information DOGE extracted gets used in court — or even leaked selectively — it could permanently tilt the scales of justice in favor of Musk and his corporate cronies. Labor law experts are already sounding the alarm, warning that even the possibility of access will have a chilling effect on union organizing and whistleblowing.

Just imagine you’re a worker trying to form a union. Would you still speak out, knowing your employer might now know your name, your address, your testimony, and your strategy — thanks to a government program run by that very employer’s billionaire CEO?

But it gets worse. Much worse. According to longtime employees within the Department of Labor and other agencies, the DOGE teams aren’t seasoned experts or trained cybersecurity professionals. They’re “new arrivals,” many of them with no vetting, no security clearance, and no relevant experience. Some have even worked with criminal hackers, and another reportedly runs a website based in Russia.

Yet they were granted sweeping access to some of the most sensitive data systems in the federal government. It’s a digital coup executed not by hackers, but by political loyalists and tech-bro mercenaries handed the keys to the kingdom by billionaire benefactors.

When Berulis tried to do the right thing — when he and his colleagues reached out to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to report the breach — they were stonewalled. Their alert was “disrupted by higher-ups without explanation.” And Berulis himself received a specific threat reminiscent of KGB strategies.

Internal cybersecurity teams were told by the Trump administration to stand down. One furious staffer at the Interior Department confessed that “every single alarm system we have regarding insider threats is going off,” but they were ordered to ignore them. That’s not just a red flag; it’s the flashing neon sign of a government being gutted from within. Or being turned over to Russian intelligence.

And don’t let the bureaucratic language of “data breaches” and “access credentials” lull you into thinking this is harmless IT stuff. These are national security breaches. If this is what it appears to be, the Rosenbergs went to the electric chair for far less.

This is a modern Watergate, but instead of burglars breaking into a filing cabinet, they’re downloading 10 gigabytes of information with a keystroke. Instead of physical threats, DOGE’s enforcers are using drones to photograph whistleblowers, and notes are being taped to front doors like something out of a dystopian thriller. 

Yet that’s exactly what happened to Berulis: a threatening note, drone surveillance, and an unmistakable message — shut up or we’ll make your life hell. This is how authoritarianism functions in the 21st century. It doesn’t need a dictator in a military uniform when it has billionaires in boardrooms, access to surveillance technology, and cronies embedded deep within the machinery of government. It replaces accountability with loyalty. It replaces oversight with secrecy. 

And it replaces democracy with intimidation and control, just like in Hungary and Russia.

Even if Musk and DOGE never use the data they’ve extracted, the damage is already done. The fear is out there. As labor expert Kate Bronfenbrenner put it, “Just saying that they have access to the data is intimidating.” And that’s the point. 

This isn’t just about controlling government agencies and the courts; it’s about creating a culture of fear so pervasive that no one dares to challenge power. Workers won’t organize. Regulators won’t enforce. Whistleblowers won’t come forward. Democracy withers not with a bang, but with a whimper of silence and complicity.

And let’s not pretend this is all just theoretical. DOGE’s operations are still underway, expanding into other agencies, extracting more data, disabling more security protocols, silencing more voices. Congress is beginning to stir — Rep. Gerald Connolly is calling for an investigation — but the clock is ticking. While bureaucrats write memos and hold hearings, the digital pillaging continues unchecked.

This is not some far-off threat. It’s happening here, now, and it’s being orchestrated by some of the richest men in the world who have zero accountability to the American people. 

The same billionaires who already own our social media platforms, our space infrastructure, and our news cycles now want direct access to our government’s innermost workings. And they’re getting it. The soul of American democracy is on the line. The question now is: will we let it be sold to the highest bidder, or will we stand up, speak out, and reclaim it? 

Berulis showed us what courage looks like. Now it’s our turn. 

Because if we don’t stop this now, it won’t just be our data they’re coming for — it’ll be our freedom.

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-Thom Hartmann