Chuck Borges has Many years have passed.
In January, Borges started a new job as chief data officer of the Social Security Administration, overseeing some of the most sensitive data systems in the federal government — including databases containing the Social Security numbers, addresses, citizenship status and benefit records of nearly every American.
Or at least that was the job description. Instead, he spent seven months struggling to gain basic visibility into the systems for which he was statutorily responsible, at times learning from press reports rather than internal discussions about how Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was operating at the agency. This summer, he filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that DOGE copied sensitive US data and transferred it to an unsecured cloud environment. Borges was forced to resign immediately.
Now, Borges is launching his campaign for Maryland state senator.
In his first interview since the campaign launched on Tuesday, Borges described his struggle with DOGE, being sidelined in his own agency, and why he thinks technologists are needed to help run this new era of government.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Wired: Why did you decide to run for office? And how did working under DOGE influence your decision to contest elections?
Chuck Borges: I left SSA at the end of August, and the next month was very difficult personally and professionally. There was a lot of discussion in Congress. There was some media outreach. We had a lot of documents to work through. I started telling various local groups that they should be concerned about data privacy. This is not a partisan issue. It is a fair issue that your data privacy should be a concern to you and there are risks involved.
In early October, the local Democratic Party reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in running for office. The reason I ran for office is very simple – I worked at the highest levels of the federal government and through that process I saw a lot of interactions with Congress. There are a lot of concerns in the country today about government laxity and many things not working.
DOGE didn’t influence my decision, but the dysfunction I experienced this year continues to motivate me to find ways to better serve the public.
When you first heard about DOGE joining SSA, what did you expect would happen?