The Brief

Elon Musk's team within the Trump administration has sought sweeping access to databases that store personal information on millions and millions of Americans.

The data collected and maintained by the government isn't just your name, home address and Social Security number.

Some federal agencies store information that many people don't share even with their closest friends and family: medical diagnoses and treatment; notes from therapy sessions; whether a person has filed for bankruptcy; detailed income information.

And now, Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has accessed heavily safeguarded databases that store such personal information, raising deep alarm among federal workers and privacy advocates.

Musk says he is targeting waste and fraud. The executive order establishing DOGE says its purpose is "modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity" and it instructs agency heads to ensure DOGE "has full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems."

But Erie Meyer — who resigned last month from her post as chief technologist at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the change in administration — doesn't trust DOGE.

"Part of what is unnerving and is scary both to companies whose data is involved and also Americans whose most sensitive financial information is at risk, is that we don't know what they're doing," she says.

Normally, according to Meyer, federal employees handling sensitive data must pass extensive background checks. But it's not clear what sort of vetting or background checks Musk's staff has undergone.

Musk says his staffers need to have the same security clearances as other employees. "Anyone from DOGE has to go through the same vetting process that those federal employees went through," Musk said recently on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast.

Some agency heads have pushed back on the notion that DOGE is accessing too much data, saying that DOGE has "read-only" access and cannot make changes in their systems.

At least a dozen lawsuits have been filed over DOGE's access to data. Unions and groups like the Center for Taxpayer Rights are filing lawsuits — both to stop DOGE from accessing any more data, and to discover what kind of information the team has already collected.

Tax records reveal many aspects of someone's life, including causes you support, information about your family and of course your financial dealings.

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Deep privacy concerns

The risks are real, according to the half-dozen technology experts who spoke with NPR for this story. Americans' personal data could be sold, lost or leaked. Or it could be used to enrich a few. But above all, they warn: Americans' essential privacy is at stake.

There are several laws, including the Privacy Act of 1974, that govern how the government collects and stores personal data. Strict rules limit when government agencies can share that data with each other.

Those limits are by design. "Everyone thinks the government already has this data" in a connected way, says one former federal worker who did not want to be named to preserve future job prospects. "But they really don't, because it's firewalled."

Some current and former government workers fear that Musk's plan is to bring huge amounts of government data together, to create deeply personal profiles on individual Americans.

One of them is Jonathan Kamens, who was overseeing cybersecurity for VA.gov until he was terminated last month alongside some 40 of his colleagues at the U.S. Digital Service, a little known government unit that Trump turned into DOGE. He points to authoritarian regimes that create dossiers used to control individuals.

"That's what I want people to be scared of," says Kamens. "That this data that the government has on them, which in some cases can be used to damage them, will be used to damage them."

DOGE did not reply to questions from NPR about the personal information it is accessing and how it plans to use that data.

Elon Musk says he's targeting waste and fraud in the federal government. Former government workers and privacy advocates aren't so sure.

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Here's an overview of a few federal agencies that hold data on large swaths of Americans — and where things stand with the DOGE team's access.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

What the agency has: Names, addresses and Social Security numbers for everyone who has paid federal taxes. Financial information including income and net worth. Bank account information for direct deposits. Any itemizations, from medical expenses to charitable donations. Whether someone has filed for bankruptcy or been a victim of identity theft. And much can be inferred from the data, including marital status, dependents, and familial relationships.

Where things stand: The White House and Treasury Department have agreed to prohibit DOGE from accessing personal taxpayer data, the Washington Post reported, and instead will have read-only access to anonymized tax data. NPR has not independently confirmed this reporting, and the IRS did not reply to NPR's request for information on what access DOGE has.

But with new leadership coming to the IRS, there's concern that DOGE's access could be expanded in the future, according to a current employee who did not wish to be identified for fear of retaliation.

Why it matters: Tax records reveal many aspects of someone's life. Also, if someone had the ability to edit IRS data, they could write their own tax bill down to zero, and "max out those of your enemies," said the employee.

Social Security Administration (SSA)

What the agency has: Records of individuals' lifetime wages and earnings. Social Security numbers of workers and their beneficiaries, and the type and amount of benefits they receive. Information on those applying for Supplemental Security Income, including citizenship status, income and payment amount. Disability and health status data on everyone who has applied for disability benefits.

Where things stand: A coalition of unions and retirees have filed a lawsuit aiming to halt DOGE's access to SSA data. Democratic senators including Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have sent letters demanding to know exactly what access DOGE has.

Leland Dudek, SSA's acting commissioner, said in an earlier statement that DOGE personnel have read-only access and cannot make changes to systems, benefit payments or information.

Why it matters: Tiffany Flick, the agency's acting chief of staff until she retired last month, expressed her concerns about DOGE access in a declaration included in the lawsuit filed by the unions. Flick believes that DOGE staffers are accessing SSA information from inside the Office of Personnel Management. That could mean that SSA's data protections don't work and that data can be accessed by other staff who have not been vetted or trained by SSA: "Others could take pictures of the data, transfer it to other locations, and even feed it into AI programs," she said. "In such a chaotic environment, the risk of data leaking into the wrong hands is significant."

Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)

What the agency has: Basic personal information as well as health information. For everyone with Medicare (the program generally for people 65 or older), CMS has their Social Security number and documentation of their eligibility, says a source who previously worked with CMS and Social Security systems who requested anonymity to preserve future job prospects.

Where things stand: According to a statement from a CMS spokesperson, two veteran employees of CMS are "leading the collaboration with DOGE." The DOGE staffers have been given "read-only access" and "none of the information they have access to contains the personal health information of Medicare or Medicaid enrollees," the spokesperson said.

Why it matters: "They have the largest amount of data in one single place about the largest group of users of healthcare," says the person familiar with CMS systems.

A data breach could mean the sharing of Americans' sensitive health data — and a company could use health data and financial data together to charge people more for health services.

Veterans Affairs has vast stores of information, including veterans' health data.

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Veterans Affairs (VA)

What the agency has: VA's healthcare arm is the largest integrated healthcare network in the country, so the agency has vast stores of veterans' health data. That includes records of substance abuse and addiction, mental health issues, even notes from therapy sessions. That's in addition to basic personal information like addresses and phone numbers. The VA also stores veterans' military records.

Where things stand: A DOGE staffer has been present at VA, and it's not clear what data he has access to, according to a current agency employee with knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation. Senate Democrats have also requested information about what access has been granted.

In a statement, a VA spokesperson says "DOGE does not have and has not had access to veterans' or VA beneficiaries' data."

VA Secretary Doug Collins has sought to calm concerns about DOGE's access. "There's also this rumor out there that DOGE is ... going to take personal information," Collins said in a recent video. "We got DOGE representatives here that are doing what they're supposed to be doing," like looking at contracts for efficiencies.

Why it matters: Jonathan Kamens, who was detailed to the VA as an employee of the U.S. Digital Service, offers a hypothetical example: A veteran who speaks out against the Trump administration, whose records show a history of PTSD and opioid addiction following battlefield injuries. Someone with access to all that information could use it to discredit the veteran in the public eye, Kamens posits.

And there's another big risk: "The data that the federal government holds on people is kind of the identity theft motherlode," says Kamens. "So if you can just steal the government data, you can pretend to be anyone. It's kind of terrifying."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has troves of data on people and companies — including inside information that could offer a major competitive advantage.

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

What the agency has: Personal data including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and financial transactions. CFPB also has troves of data it collects as it pursues litigation. If the bureau has investigated a company for collecting too much information on people, it has that too.

Where things stand: The Trump administration has required bureau staff to give DOGE sweeping, "God-tier access" to the bureau's data, says Erie Meyer, the former chief technologist of CFPB. The bureau did not respond to NPR's questions on what access DOGE staffers have to CFPB data and systems.

Amid litigation, the government has agreed for now to not delete or remove data held by CFPB, following a declaration by Meyer that Trump appointees planned to delete databases holding CFPB data.

Why it matters: The bureau also has the consumer complaints that people submit to the bureau about companies. "So that database could have not just people's information, but the worst financial thing that has ever happened to them and how a company responded," says Meyer.

The bureau also has large amounts of data on companies, including market research, financial records and business plans. One concern, voiced by Senate Democrats among others, is that Musk could use the data that the bureau has collected on payment apps Zelle and Cash App to get an inside edge for the digital payment platform he's planning.

NPR Correspondent Hansi Lo Wang contributed to this story.

Copyright 2025 NPR

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Soh Yun Park wants the Korean community to know that she’s listening. Or more importantly, there are nearly 70 volunteer counselors, the majority who speak Korean, who are available to talk with them.

Last year, she founded with her husband a phone line primarily focused on helping the Korean-speaking community during mental health challenges in their lives.

The organization is based in Koreatown, but its reach goes beyond the neigborhood.

“Hearing such heavy stories makes my heart ache,” she said. ”But it’s an honor to be the ears that listen.” 

She and her husband, Sang Kyun Park, founded the Youstar Foundation’s warmline, one step below the type of hotline that’s called during an emergency, in a means to reach the community that is experiencing high rates of suicides and a stigma in asking for help. 

The thrust of the Youstar Foundation’s warmline is to reduce that stigma around mental health and address the generational struggle in seeking support. Whereas most warmlines offer mental health support for diverse groups of people, this warmline offers a free emotional support telephone service for Korean Americans. 

QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) training for suicide prevention, organized by YouStar Foundation.

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In many ways, Soh Yun Park’s trajectory to mental health advocacy was not a straight line.

She was born and raised in South Korea and finished college before immigrating to the United States to join her family. Her background was a bit different from her current work as she originally majored in engineering, then worked as an accountant after moving to the U.S.

In 2002, Soh Yun Park met her husband who was working as a journalist at the time. In his work, Sang Kyun Park noticed people struggling from difficulties with physical health to battles with mental health. He wanted to do something to help. 

In response, Sang Kyun created a magazine that advertised local community service organizations in hopes that they would reach the people who needed them.

After receiving a call from a mother whose child was diagnosed with leukemia and required a bone marrow transplant, Soh Yun and her husband decided to create the Youstar Foundation. The organization began with a mission to spread awareness about cancer. 

But roughly six years after they started dating, Sang Kyun Park became ill and had a serious health crisis. 

“My husband has bipolar disorder,” Soh Yun Park said. “ That’s when I realized how serious this illness was, but we didn’t fully know how to treat it.”

At the time, she searched for a pyschologist, but the language barrier was a huge hurdle.

“If you can’t communicate, it’s terrifying,” she said.

Despite Sang Kyun’s diagnosis from a young age, he was unable to find proper treatment in Korea. 

“It’s hard to test different doctors when you are already in an emergency state,” Soh Yun Park said. 

After 10 years of combined therapy and medication, she saw her husband improve and the effects that therapy can have on someone in a crisis situation. She wanted to help others do the same. 

That’s when the couple shifted their organization’s mission to helping the Korean community talk about their mental health struggles.

But Soh Yun Park understood the stigma of getting mental health care in the Korean community. 

“They hide it, which prevents them from getting help,” she said “This leaves not just the individual, but the whole family hiding in darkness.”

The warmline was meant to serve as the first step in getting out of the shadows. 

Out of all Asian groups in Los Angeles County, Koreans were found to have the highest rate of suicide, according to the latest available data. 

With recent federal policies cutting funding for mental health resources and mental health becoming a rising concern in Koreatown, Youstar Foundation’s warmline is one way to address the issue.

Park shares her experience in organizing healing seminars for Korean Angelenos.

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For a city like Los Angeles where more than half of the population are immigrants, the warmline reduces barriers for Korean American immigrants by operating in two languages, Korean and English. 

Cheryl Eskin, licensed marriage and family therapist and senior director of the teen hotline program, Teen Line, said these types of resources often go unnoticed among the people who need them the most.

 “These resources are staffed by kind, compassionate people who are ready to listen and support without judgement,” Eskin said. 

The worry about being judgme keeps many people from asking for the very help they need, she said.

“Cultural and societal factors often come into play with people believing that their problems are not worthy of support or reveal that something is ‘wrong’ with them,” Eskin added.

Park’s work with the Youstar Foundation aims to address this type of barrier. 

The line emphasizes the benefits of having counselors who share the same cultural background as their callers, who can relate to parent behaviors and generational hardships specific to the Korean community. 

YouStar Foundation’s warmline can be reached at 213-221-2813. Visit YouStar Foundation’s website for more info on their resources. Available from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. The foundation hopes to expand the program to 24-hours within the next three years. 

If you or someone else requires mental health support, call the 24/7 LACDMH Help Line at 1-800-854-7771 or call/text 988 to reach the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. 

This story was produced under The LA Local’s Youth Journalism Program. To learn more or to get involved, click here.

California’s largest public pension fund just had a banner year, riding a soaring stock market to record its second consecutive double-digit annual investment return.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System announced Monday that it gained 14.8% on its investment portfolio in the 2025-26 financial year, more than doubling its target of 6.8%.

CalPERS Chief Executive Officer Marcie Frost in remarks to the board described the return as the fund’s best year since 2014, excluding 2021 when markets rebounded from a crash caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“Our team has maintained a disciplined approach to building the health of the pension system, and our improved funded status shows this effort is paying off for our 2.4 million members,” she said in a written statement.

By the numbers

CalPERS finished the budget year with a portfolio valued at $637.1 billion — about $80 billion more than a year ago.

The investment return is an important number to California government agencies because they have to cough up more money to cover losses when CalPERS comes up short.

CalPERS is considered underfunded because its assets are worth less than what it owes in total to the people who earn and receive benefits through it. Its assets are now valued at 85% of what it owes to members.

That number is also a milestone in CalPERS’ recovery from its losses during the Great Recession. CalPERS’ assets were worth about 68% of what it owed to members a decade ago before it began a set of policy changes that effectively required government agencies and public employees to pay more toward their pensions.

What this means for union negotiations

The earnings report comes at a moment when public safety unions are urging lawmakers to boost retirement benefits for police and firefighters for the first time since former Gov. Jerry Brown scaled back retirement perks with a 2012 law. The big number could make legislators more confident in saying yes to the unions and modifying Brown’s pension reform law.

Some groups have been urging CalPERS to simplify its investment strategies in the interest of making more money faster, which would relieve some pressure on government agencies and taxpayers. That criticism came up in last year’s CalPERS election, where several unsuccessful candidates characterized the fund as underperforming.

Two former CalPERS board members now involved with an organization called the Retired Public Employees Association — Margaret Brown and J.J. Jelincic — have focused on the pension fund’s stakes in private equity, investments that sometimes include high fees and uncertain values. They supported a failed bill in the Legislature this year that would have compelled CalPERS to disclose more information about those investments.

“These are very good results, however you need to think about how you got there,” Jelincic told the CalPERS board. “You expanded high risk private equity and you moved into higher risk segments within that asset class.”

How they got here

Last year the CalPERS board adopted a so-called total portfolio approach that empowers Chief Investment Officer Stephen Gillmore to make decisions more quickly and in the interest of the overall fund rather than specific asset classes — such as private equity or real estate. The policy directs CalPERS to keep 75% of its portfolio in equities and 25% in bonds.

Frost and Gillmore view private equity as an important segment in the portfolio. The pension fund formally opposed the legislation that would have required more transparency about private equity, which the fund projected would have cost it billions of dollars in missed opportunities.

“Investing in the private markets gives us potential to earn higher returns while spreading our risk from the often volatile public stock market,” Frost told the board.

CalPERS earned a 17% return on its private equity investments last year and a 24% return on its investments in stocks. The S&P 500 climbed by 21% over that timeframe.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The Jordan Brand tent that went up in Inglewood for NBA All-Star Weekend earlier this year is going to become a permanent fixture for school district events, according to a district official. 

Jordan built the structure at 106 E. Manchester Blvd. — a parcel owned by the Inglewood Unified School District — for a string of February promotional events during All-Star festivities at the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum. 

James Morris, the district’s county administrator, told The LA Local that Think True LLC, the company that leased the site from the district, plans to convert the heavy-duty but temporary structure into a permanent event space.

Morris said the district can’t use the building for instructional activities — that would require a rigorous architectural approval from the state — but will be able to use it for events such as career fairs and PTA fundraisers. 

“It’s going to be a pretty awesome event space,” Morris said. 

Think True initially signed a six-month lease with the district in December. The company tore down the vacant former Inglewood Adult School building that sat on the property and built the Jordan tent within months. 

Instead of paying rent, the lease required Think True to build the temporary structure and to allow the district to use the space for events. 

At the end of June, Think True and the district extended the lease until Oct. 20, according to meeting records. 

Morris said the marketing agency will use the remainder of the current lease to add a permanent basketball court, bathrooms, an HVAC system and other amenities needed to get a permanent certificate of occupancy. The new lease still requires no rent payments, though the district is still allowed to use the structure. 

Morris said the lease could be extended again, though no agreement has yet been reached. Think True did not respond to an inquiry from The LA Local.

An outbreak of an intestinal illness that causes diarrhea, nausea and fatigue has been detected in 31 states, according to federal health authorities, but the source is still under investigation.

As of Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had received reports of 843 cases of cyclosporiasis, the gastrointestinal affliction caused by the parasite Cyclospora.

But the true number of infections is likely much higher, because that figure only represents cases reported by states directly to the CDC. There is also a lag between symptom onset and reporting, and many people recover from the illness without medical treatment. Michigan alone reported 1,562 cyclosporiasis cases as of Friday.

According to the CDC, as of Thursday, there had been been 86 hospitalizations nationwide and no deaths.

People can contract the illness by eating food or drinking water contaminated with the parasite. Previous outbreaks have been linked to fresh produce. In 2018, McDonald's removed salads from restaurants in 14 states after federal health officials linked them to dozens of cases of cyclosporiasis, and tainted lettuce imported from Mexico was suspected to have sickened 400 people in the U.S. in 2013.

It's typical for cyclosporiasis infections to rise in the spring and summer, but the CDC said Friday that multiple states had reported a larger jump in cases over the previous two weeks than they had during the same period last year.

Where are cyclosporiasis infections occurring?

Health officials from California to Texas to Florida have reported cases of cyclosporiasis since the start of May.

Some of the hardest-hit areas appear to be in the Midwest and Northeast, including Michigan and New York.

The Ohio Department of Health reported 177 cyclosporiasis cases as of July 2, most of which occurred in June. Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, said cyclosporiasis is a "serious illness that can cause dehydration and require people to seek emergency medical care, and it should be taken seriously."

According to the CDC, those sickened with the disease have ranged in age from 5 to 88 years old.

The total number of nationwide cases is expected to grow, due to the estimated six-week gap between when illnesses begin and when they are reported to federal health authorities.

What's causing the outbreak?

That is still unclear. The CDC says it is continuing to try to identify the source or sources of the recent surge of cyclosporiasis infections.

Investigators do that in part by interviewing those who've become sick to find out what they've eaten. But since symptoms can appear anywhere between two days and two weeks or more after a person was infected, they may not remember everything they ate during that period.

Previous U.S. outbreaks of cyclosporiasis have been associated with raspberries, basil, cilantro, snow peas and lettuce, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

How to prevent cyclosporiasis

Cooking produce is an effective way to avoid an infection, as heating food to 158 degrees Fahrenheit or higher kills Cyclospora.

Public health officials also suggest that people thoroughly wash all of their fresh produce, including herbs, though the parasites are not easy to rinse off.

It is also important for home cooks to observe standard food safety rules, such as washing their hands with soap and water before and after handling fresh produce.

Anyone who suspects they've been sickened with cyclosporiasis and is experiencing dehydration or severe diarrhea is encouraged to see a doctor. Cyclosporiasis infections are typically treated with antibiotics.

NPR's Allison Aubrey contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR