While it's hard to overestimate the clownishness of this administration, I'd want to see the original wording of this denial before concluding that they said something that stupid, versus the author of this article paraphrasing it in a stupid manner. I'm not sure if this is what they're referring to, but the only response from the SSA that I found with a brief search doesn't say anything so foolish: https://dailycaller.com/2025/09/02/social-security-administr...
Nothing nerve wrecking like that but come on. They claim "the information could not have been stolen because the security practices" but "evidence has been published online, is now available to anyone and therefore it is dangerous" is a clown situation. It doesn't matter how it happened, it happened. Them trying to dispute the method is a clown camp.
The agency's statement says that PII is secure but that the complaint included internal emails and documents with info about the agency's systems and employees. That's not contradictory.
I suspect the whistleblower is correct, but I don't think it's proven to the point where we can confidently state that "it happened." SSA isn't trying to dispute the method, they're trying to dispute the fundamental claim.
