Zoe Schiffer: Deviance and freaks, the brand new identify for the podcast. So, going again to purple teaming, that is one thing that belief and security groups sometimes do. And people groups are—
Leah Figer: That does not exist anymore.
Zoe Schiffer: It isn’t as massive because it was once. There aren’t that many roles. So it’s going to be fascinating to see how this performs out. Clearly inside the meta, we have been speaking to folks like this week who discovered this information on SI. The corporate has simply laid off most of its staff. I wrote about it. We talked about that. And I requested folks, “Properly, how are you now?” Hacking was like an excuse to speak to folks and see how they had been doing. And so they say, “So, you guessed it, we’re being requested to do two jobs, not now.” So you possibly can think about how that may play out.
Brian Barrett: And as we talked earlier about AI regulation, there’s lots of give attention to nationwide safety and these high-level issues, however much less give attention to shopper merchandise. So when you’re speaking about one thing like a bureau that controls shopper finance and protects it, it will be useful to have that at this second as effectively. We had a type of too. Technically, I assume it nonetheless is, however not likely. So all of this widespread deregulation is going on at this second when the instruments that had been beforehand accessible are not accessible. These new instruments are extremely error-prone. We’ll proceed to see much more.
Leah Figer: Can I carry up a subject unrelated to AI?
Brian Barrett: please.
Zoe Schiffer: oh. I did not know such a factor existed, however right here we go, Queen.
Brian Barrett: I additionally suppose you could find a method to reverse it.
Zoe Schiffer: we will. we will.
Leah Figer: No, undoubtedly not. Properly, okay. This story is one we have been fascinated by, reporting on, and following for a very long time, nevertheless it’s all in regards to the DOGE whistleblower who simply filed a lawsuit in opposition to Elon Musk. This all began final yr. On April 14, 2025, Nationwide Labor Relations Board (NLRB) IT staffer Dan Berlis filed a whistleblower criticism with in depth claims. He stated it seems DOGE has compromised the company’s knowledge and leaked knowledge from the NLRB.
Archive audio: The whistleblower has come ahead with claims that DOGE not solely had entry to knowledge from his company, but additionally exfiltrated a major quantity of delicate knowledge. In keeping with disclosures shared with Congress, “roughly 10 gigabytes of information can be well worth the equal of a whole stack of encyclopedias if somebody printed these information as hardcopy paperwork.”
Leah Figer: This can be a huge declare, particularly throughout the identical interval that you simply all keep in mind effectively, when the DOGE crew was firing federal staff and accessing delicate knowledge throughout the nation. Final April was on the top of that. Berlis was made public in an NPR article. He claimed it had his identify on it, a threatening be aware taped to his door, and he was already afraid to talk out. Backtracking a bit, Berlis is presently submitting a defamation lawsuit in opposition to Elon Musk in DC courtroom. He stated Musk falsely acknowledged that Berlis’ whistleblower criticism in opposition to DOGE was false and focused him for additional violence. This can be a very sturdy declare for a wide range of causes, and what it actually brings to thoughts is that Musk re-shared a revelation final yr from a right-wing influencer who claimed that DOGE had been eliminated and that this whistleblower’s testimony was basically faux. After that occurred—
