Let Your Reps Know

This letter to the editor, by Joyce Santo, appeared in the Hudson Star Observer on February 13, 2025.

Everyone who uses a computer and the internet knows the importance of maintaining security. We use safe passwords. We use two-step verification for financial and health records. We also rely upon our service providers — banks, medical clinics, and government — to protect our private data and keep our information confidential.

Would you put up with US Bank or Wells Fargo turning over its records —including your personal account numbers, balances, and transactions –– to an unvetted outside party that does not have bank security clearances? That would be stealing and compromising your confidential financial information.

How about Westfields Hospital and Clinic opening their patients’ medical records – including your recent annual physical results – to consultants Westfields did not select and over whom Westfields has no control? None of their damn business!

Now what if our federal government handed over your Social Security account number and payment records, which you contributed to for more than 40 years, or opened up your income tax returns to a few folks barely out of college who are not federal employees and who have not been vetted or granted security clearances by our federal government. Would that bother you? Highway robbery!

But that’s exactly what happened when billionaire Elon Musk and his boyish band of DOGE computer engineers forced access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s computer systems. Make no mistake about it: Musk is now able to steal from you and me to give our tax money to giant corporations and billionaires.

This assault on Americans and our American government has got to stop. Call or write — better yet, call AND write — Representative Tom Tiffany (202-225-3365) and Senators Ron Johnson (202-224-5323 ) and Tammy Baldwin (202- 224-5653) and email all three at https://democracy.io/#!/ to demand that they do their jobs and enforce the balance of power among our co-equal branches of government. Tell them to keep the Legislative branch strong and the Executive branch in check. Tell them to stop Musk and his minions from stealing from you.