McCabe: Elon Musk Identifying Government Employees to Fire ‘Super Unfortunate, but It Doesn’t Probably Rise to the Level of Criminal Illegality’

HILL: “So when you look at this and in terms of what Hadas laid out for us here, when you are this private citizen, sure, that information may be publicly available, but it’s far different when Elon Musk is blasting it out. Is there any sort of protection or recourse for people like this?”

McCabe: “You know, Erica, probably not. It’s a — it’s a tough situation. So, unlike the swatting we were talking about a few minutes ago, that is specifically illegal. There are laws that address it. There’s not really statutes that criminalize the irresponsible things that Elon Musk is now doing with these people’s identity. There could be Privacy Act implications, but that’s probably unlikely. The information about salary of particular government positions and things like that, that’s all, as you mentioned, publicly available information. Nevertheless, when working in government, we go to great lengths to keep the personal identities of people in those positions concealed or at least we keep them out of things like public filings for exactly this reason. Those folks are entitled to their privacy and it could provoke this sort of — this sort of attention that’s really, you know, can be threatening and awful for people to go through. Elon Musk obviously hasn’t exercised that same level of discretion here. And it’s very different when you do it from a position like his, in which he has millions and millions of rabid followers who listen to and read everything he says and writes, and sometimes take action on those on those missives. So yeah, it’s really irresponsible. It’s super unfortunate, but it doesn’t probably rise to the level of criminal illegality.”