Vittoria Elliott: You mentioned that everything was beyond the signal. Obviously, if you are a government worker, there are rules for maintaining a government job record. Has anyone ever talked to you about: “Hey, you have to archive these messages. Hey, you have to save these emails. Hey, you can’t delete them.” Has anyone talked to you about your…any legal obligations about you in your work at Doge?
Sahil Lavingia: No, no. So, there is no communication to talk in the media, don’t talk to the media, take pictures, don’t take pictures, disclose anything you do with anyone. Yes, I don’t know anything about archives, maintenance records. It is just done on the signal and never communicated like “such as why we use the signal.” It’s like, “Steven will call you to signal”, that’s it.
Vittoria Elliott: Many Doge engineers have been assigned to multiple agencies. Have you ever assigned to another agency other than VA, and do you have any feelings about why there are so many Doge engineers at multiple agencies at the same time?
Sahil Lavingia: Yes, I’m not. I’m assigned to VA and I guess I’ve never covered details of any other agency. My feeling is that there are fewer engineers in Doge than people think. There are 10 or less. So I think they might actually have very limited how many people they have…if they have 500 engineers they don’t have to do that, but I think they have very few, especially with very little trust, right. I think there might be this split and a sense that if you join the meeting, you are considered an outside contributor volunteer. And, if you join the listing, my guess is more serious, just having more time to build trust with the likes of Steve and Elon. So I think they just trust a small group of people, so they just need the same group to run around and do it between agencies.
Vittoria Elliott: knew. Given that you are touching data that might be really sensitive, are there any controls? Someone sat down and said, “You’re going to touch a bunch of sensitive things. You’re or aren’t allowed to do that.” Do you feel there’s any conversation on Doge about how to handle this data, how to ensure security protection, and how to ensure people can go back to the private sector, not for their own interests?
Sahil Lavingia: Yes. There is nothing specific around, but there is. I think it depends on the agency, which have their own protocols to follow. In our Virginia, there is some data that says, “If you want to access this question, you have to do these two-hour courses online, where you’ve been tested a lot and you have to say that you can…know the risks.” But, as far as HR data goes, I’m able to access all HR data, all contracts don’t…I don’t have to sign anything or say anything I agree not to share with the public or do anything like that. This is implied. However, I was surprised. I mean, I’m…I asked them at one time. I was like, “How many people do I like to have access to HR data?” They are like, “basically everyone in HR.” I thought, “You know there are social security numbers for everyone in this data. There are 473,000 social security numbers.” They are like, “Yes, thousands of people can use it.” I was like, “A little weird.” And I do think the government can improve those controls and make them better. Sometimes I had access to this thing called CDW at one time, where…I think it represents the company data warehouse, which is actually all the data in the VA is in the CDW, and they revoked my access a few hours later, and they realized that someone gave me this right to access, and they basically did it, and they were like, “Dudd, why did you give him access to this?” They were like, “Well, he’s the senior adviser to the Chief of Staff. That’s… our agreement is to give you access to all the data when you ask.” I think from the beginning, Doge is much more power than people think, so everyone is doing what we ask them to do, and thinking unnecessary, I’m going to think, “No.”
