The handfuls of USDS cuts final week hit groups like product administration, design, and procurement. Kamens and different sources advised WIRED that he’s the one individual from the USDS engineering workforce who was fired. He and others speculate that he was focused as a result of he had been publicly vital of DOGE within the weeks earlier than the USDS cuts. DOGE didn’t return a request for remark about his elimination.
Whereas all giant IT programs have to be shielded from hacking threats, Kamens says that probably the most pressing tasks he was engaged on on the VA concerned containing veterans’ delicate private knowledge so it may solely be saved in probably the most guarded components of the system and deploying stronger controls to restrict who may entry what info. Each understanding how knowledge flows by means of a system and limiting entry to scale back threat from community intrusion and insider threats have emerged as key safety priorities for any group.
“My greatest concern that I used to be attempting to handle in my time on the VA associated to non-public well being knowledge and private info, PHI and PII, ending up in locations they weren’t purported to be,” Kamens says. “And, in my view, our entry management, whereas it was OK, was not as robust because it ought to have been, which means I don’t assume we had sufficient granularity over controlling who had entry to what knowledge.” He provides that tasks he was spearheading to handle these considerations at the moment are at excessive threat of stalling out.
The impacts of the cuts at VA, in addition to the USDS cuts that will even have an effect on the veterans’ company, are nonetheless coming into view. However along with probably hampering initiatives to enhance digital safety, the reductions could have an effect on the efficacy and reliability of the digital protections which can be at present in place.
Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington and the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, hosted a virtual press conference on Wednesday with former federal employees from her state who had been just lately terminated. One, Raphael Garcia, is a disabled Military veteran who had been working as a administration analyst for the VA.
“I coordinated IT system entry so that each workforce member had the correct instruments,” Garcia mentioned in the course of the occasion. “I managed vital compliance and operational controls whereas sustaining fixed communication with stakeholders nationwide.” He added that whereas his termination is a private hardship, it is usually a “stark reminder that our federal authorities is dismantling its central help system for veterans and susceptible communities.”
For his half, Kamens, who spent his profession previous to USDS within the personal sector, says that he got here to like authorities work, and it will likely be tough to seek out one other job as rewarding.
“There have been these interviews all of us needed to do with the DOGE individuals the day after the inauguration,” he says. “In mine, considered one of them requested me to explain what I used to be doing at VA after which mentioned one thing like, ‘For those who’re doing all that work, why aren’t you working within the personal sector the place you possibly can be making twice as a lot cash?’ And I mentioned, ‘As a result of I don’t care concerning the cash. I care about serving veterans.’
“I believe the truth that somebody requested me that query in any respect is de facto telling.”