May, 10 2022, 02:48pm EDT
Musk Can't Ignore Trump's Threat to Democracy
Elon Musk said today that he would reverse Twitter's ban on disgraced and twice-impeached former President Donald Trump. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, released the following statement:
"Donald Trump has used Twitter and social media to drive an authoritarian, proto-fascist movement that is a clear and present danger to our democracy. There's nothing hypothetical about this - he used social media to spread the Big Lie about the 2020 election and to encourage a violent insurrection on Jan. 6. Trump continues to spread the Big Lie and continues to threaten democracy.
WASHINGTON
Elon Musk said today that he would reverse Twitter's ban on disgraced and twice-impeached former President Donald Trump. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, released the following statement:
"Donald Trump has used Twitter and social media to drive an authoritarian, proto-fascist movement that is a clear and present danger to our democracy. There's nothing hypothetical about this - he used social media to spread the Big Lie about the 2020 election and to encourage a violent insurrection on Jan. 6. Trump continues to spread the Big Lie and continues to threaten democracy.
"Elon Musk is wrong to believe Twitter can turn a blind eye to this danger - and not acknowledge the ways Trump has used the platform to facilitate his authoritarian crusade. And he is wrong to believe that it is sufficient to remove specifically abusive Tweets or impose temporary suspensions on Trump for future wrongdoing. The Trump problem is not about individual tweets but the steady narrative of anti-democratic lies.
"Platform moderation decisions are hard. Permanent bans on individuals are, all things equal, undesirable. Platforms should appropriately give more leeway to political figures, all things equal. With all that said, the moderation decision around Trump really isn't that hard. He should remain permanently banned.
"American democracy is in peril, and Twitter and social media are part of the problem. It is incumbent on Twitter and other social media corporations to recognize the threat, their complicity, and their obligation to act affirmatively to protect democracy - including by denying Trump a platform for hate, lies, demagoguery, and authoritarianism."
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Trump Pushes Supreme Court to Let Musk's Cronies Seize Social Security Data
"Why do Elon 'Social Security's a Ponzi scheme' Musk and his DOGE cronies need to stick their fingers in your personal data—your work history, income, benefits, and health records?" asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
May 03, 2025
President Donald Trump's administration requested in an emergency filing on Friday that the U.S. Supreme Court allow members of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to access highly sensitive Social Security data, complaining that a lower court ruling is inflicting "ongoing, irreparable harm on urgent federal priorities."
The filing, authored by U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, asks the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to lift a preliminary injunction issued last monthby Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, who has accused Musk's team of engaging in "a fishing expedition" at the Social Security Administration (SSA) "in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion."
The Trump administration's request escalates a monthslong fight over access to the sensitive records that began in February, when the then-acting head of SSA left her post after Musk's lieutenants began infiltrating the agency and attempting to seize data.
A court ruling issued a month later ordered DOGE to "disgorge or delete all unlawfully obtained, disclosed, or accessed data." Musk, the richest person in the world, has falsely described Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme" and peddled discredited claims of large-scale abuses in the program.
The Center for American Progress noted last month that "while President Trump and Elon Musk repeat the long-debunked claim that dead people are claiming Social Security benefits, DOGE staffers are reportedly searching for dead claimants."
"As a result, according to The Washington Post, more than 10 million new people have been marked as dead since early March, including many seniors who are very much alive," the think tank wrote in an analysis warning that DOGE's efforts at SSA pose a grave threat to Social Security recipients. "For example, the SSA erroneously declared 82-year-old Seattle resident Ned Johnson dead. Before Johnson was even aware of or could remedy the mistake, the agency cut off his retirement benefits, took thousands of dollars out of his bank account, and cut off his Medicare."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in response to the administration's Supreme Court filing that "Trump and Musk need to get their hands off Americans' Social Security."
"Why do Elon 'Social Security's a Ponzi scheme' Musk and his DOGE cronies need to stick their fingers in your personal data—your work history, income, benefits, and health records?" Warren asked.
"Many Social Security field offices have lost half their staff, even as DOGE is forcing millions more people a year to visit those offices. What good are earned benefits that Americans can't access?"
As the Economic Policy Institute recently explained, Social Security personnel "protect a trove of personally identifiable information."
"Sensitive information stored in SSA databases includes not only Social Security numbers, but also detailed earnings, tax, banking, and medical records," the group observed. "Until DOGE entered SSA headquarters, this information was carefully protected, with limited access granted to specially trained employees only for specific purposes."
The Trump administration's aggressive push to access SSA data comes amid a broader assault on the agency and Social Security itself, despite the president's vow to protect the program.
Earlier Friday, the White House released a budget proposal that calls for leaving SSA funding flat, which advocates said is effectively a cut given rising costs.
"The truth is that Social Security is extremely understaffed, which is increasing backlogs and wait times," Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works, said in a statement. "This budget will make those backlogs and delays worse. It will make mistakes—including the Orwellian nightmare of being inadvertently declared dead when you are not—harder to fix."
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Defenders of climate and the rule of law blasted the Trump administration on Friday for using what one consumer campaigner called a "phony" emergency to wage lawfare agaist states trying to hold Big Oil financially accountable for the planetary crisis.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed complaints against New York and Vermont over their climate superfund laws, which empower states to seek financial compensation from fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of climate mitigation. The burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of human-caused global heating.
Separately, the DOJ also sued Hawaii and Michigan "to prevent each state from suing fossil fuel companies in state court to seek damages for alleged climate change harms."
"The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing."
Hours later, Hawaii became the 10th state to sue Big Oil for lying about the climate damage caused by fossil fuels. The Aloha State's lawsuit targets ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other corporations for their "decadeslong campaign of deception to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change" and sow public doubt about the existence and main cause of the crisis.
"The federal lawsuit filed by the Justice Department attempts to block Hawaii from holding the fossil fuel industry responsible for deceptive conduct that caused climate change damage," Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez said. "The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing and is a direct attack on Hawaii's rights as a sovereign state."
The DOJ on Thursday cited President Donald Trump's April 8 executive order, " Protecting American Energy From State Overreach," which affirms the president's commitment "to unleashing American energy, especially through the removal of all illegitimate impediments to the identification, development, siting, production, investment in, or use of domestic energy resources—particularly oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, geothermal, biofuel, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources."
Trump also signed a day-one edict declaring a "national energy emergency" in service of his campaign pledge to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-heating fossil fuels. The "emergency" has been invoked to fast-track fossil fuel permits, including for extraction projects on public lands.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement Thursday, "When states seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authority, they harm the country's ability to produce energy and they aid our adversaries."
"The department's filings seek to protect Americans from unlawful state overreach that would threaten energy independence critical to the well-being and security of all Americans," Gustafson added.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, on Friday accused the Trump administration of "using a phony energy emergency declaration to illegally attack state climate and clean energy laws."
"There is no energy emergency, and Trump's stated reasoning for it is as much a scam as every other pathetic con and hustle this president attempts," Weissman continued. "Fake constitutional claims based on a fake emergency cannot and will not displace sensible and long overdue state efforts to hold dirty energy corporations accountable."
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"When people can't get their benefits for any reason, that is a benefit cut," said one advocate.
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A new analysis out Friday makes the case that cuts proposed by the Trump administration to Social Security operations nationwide will create a "significant new burden" for millions of people, particularly "those who live in rural areas or have transportation or mobility difficulties."
Those who collect Social Security benefits will no longer be able to update their direct deposit banking information solely by phone. Instead of verifying their identity via security questions over the phone, the agency will require those who rely on Social Security to use a multifactor authentication process that includes a one-time PIN code or to visit a social security office in person.
The left-leaning think tank behind the new analysis, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), warned Friday that even though Trump officials within the SSA have claimed that the policy shift is designed to reduce fraud, "the agency's own figures show that direct deposit fraud is a very small problem—less than one-hundredth of one percent of benefits are misdirected."
A document from the agency gives "estimated burden figures," which indicates that nearly 2 million beneficiaries will need to visit a field office as a result of the changed process.
An April analysis from CBPP estimated that some 6 million live more than a 45-mile trip away from the nearest Social Security field office.
"The new PIN code requirement will be impossible for many beneficiaries to meet," according to the analysis from CBPP released Friday. "Many seniors and people with disabilities lack internet service, computers or smartphones, or the technological savvy to navigate SSA's online services."
What's more, the analysis states, "the PIN requirement expects callers to complete a multi-step, multifactor authentication and generate a PIN code while on the phone with an agent. Or if they don't have an account, they must hang up, establish an online account, then call back—a not-insignificant inconvenience when most callers to SSA do not reach an agent on the first try, and the wait time for a call back from SSA averages 2.5 hours."
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, told Common Dreams on Friday that the CBPP analysis helps show how "the Trump administration and its goons are waging a full scale war against Social Security. They are forcing millions of Americans into Social Security offices at the same time they are cutting a huge percentage of the workforce."
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Trump, with the help of his billionaire advisor Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, have endeavored to slash government spending and personnel. A tracker from The New York Times estimates that there has been a 5% staff reduction at SSA, but total planned reductions at the agency could ultimately cut staff by 17%.
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