WatchCats Jonathan Kamens: A DOGE Casualty at Veterans Affairs | WatchCats #6
This week we’re doing something a little bit different: We’re kicking off a series of interviews with alumni of the United States Digital Service (USDS), now rebranded the “United States DOGE Service,” where Elon Musk’s youthful band of chainsaw-wielders are formally housed.
In many ways the USDS is a model of all that DOGE purports to be seeking to accomplish: It deployed skilled technologists, often with impressive résumés in private sector tech, to a wide range of government agencies with a mission to streamline and modernize operations, making them more efficient and less wasteful. Instead of benefitting from their experience, Musk has opted to effectively dismantle the agency, with many staffers unceremoniously fired and others resigning in protest.
This week we’re presenting several of their stories—talking about the work they were doing at USDS, how they found their way into federal service, and why they’re no longer there. We’ll leave it to our listeners to decide whether their departure makes the federal government any more efficient.
Our first guest in the series is Jonathan Kamens, a cybersecurity professional seconded to Veterans Affairs, where he worked on securing their public-facing website. He’s publicly described the circumstances of his departure in an op-ed for The Hill we think is well worth reading.
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