[HN Gopher] DHS removes all members of cyber security advisory b...
___________________________________________________________________
DHS removes all members of cyber security advisory boards, halts
investigations
Author : BHSPitMonkey
Score : 252 points
Date : 2025-01-22 07:53 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bsky.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (bsky.app)
| ggm wrote:
| Can somebody give me a rational take on why? It feels immensely
| reactive. Salt Typhoon would seem to represent an active threat.
| Didn't DHS act quite.. conservatively?
|
| A comment on the blusky thread went to "five eyes should stop
| sharing information" which I suspect won't happen, but I could
| see people thinking it should.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Can somebody give me a rational take on why?_
|
| Investigations are annoying to people who were behind the
| President at his inauguration.
| ggm wrote:
| AWS and starlink have exposure of risk. You would think DHS
| work here went to net beneficial outcomes for both of them,
| and the wider telco sector. (Assuming you meant the tech
| sector)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _AWS and starlink have exposure of risk_
|
| What risk? There isn't a consumer liability, and they can
| control the cybersecurity risk-reward balance they're
| exposed to. From their perspective, oversight _is_ the
| liability.
|
| A good rule of thumb, at least for the next couple of
| months, is that any rules and regulations that have been
| criticised by the billionaires, banks or oil & gas industry
| are likely to be shredded. (The "deep state" stuff is
| mostly whoever has the king's ear sort of politics. It's
| unclear that had any influence here.)
| donavanm wrote:
| I get what youre saying but Im not sure absolute
| liability is quite right. Im thinking of SBOM directives,
| or industry network security requirements for bgp
| announcements, for example. Amazon and, I assume, some of
| the other mega corps are AGES ahead of industry at large.
| Like huge multi year investments so that theyre plausibly
| close to complying with secure provenance, review, build
| tracking, and artifact integrity reporting from initial
| CR to request processing for everything that touches
| customer or business data. My impression is that the
| industry _generally_ isnt any further than tracking some
| package names and version strings and calling it SBOM. If
| the new directives can preclude a large number of
| contract competitors that seems like a huge win.
|
| Or, maybe Im thinking more of advantageous
| requirements/regulations than oversight per se.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Amazon _et al_ would much prefer to do that on their own
| terms than have to coordinate with government (or their
| competitors).
| donavanm wrote:
| Arent they differentiating only _if_ they required to get
| federal and dod money? The coordination definitely seems
| to be more of amzn (and similar) employees providing
| technical expertise to congress and regulators. They
| certainly take deployments and internal security
| seriously, but it doesnt seem to be monetizable outside
| of the contract requirements. Or maybe im missing your
| point?
| alephnerd wrote:
| What OP is saying is instead of having some sort of legal
| liability attached or outside directives being handed to
| them, they would rather implement on their own or push
| their own standards.
|
| A notable example is SEC mandates on breach disclosures,
| which will most likely be dead now. Those were a major
| forcing function to make companies realize security is
| important. Otherwise, paying a ransom and doing the bare
| minimum to not get cut by Chubbs or AXA is the norm.
|
| I agree with JumpCriscross on his read of this situation.
| It ain't great. At least I'm well off enough to weather
| the negative impacted by a lot of the chaos. Sucks for
| everyone else.
|
| > The coordination definitely seems to be more of amzn
| (and similar) employees providing technical expertise to
| congress and regulators
|
| It's bidirectional. CISA, FBI, and others often get intel
| or actively take down a botnet or offensive actor, and
| will percolate this information to security teams at
| larger organizations before percolating en masse.
|
| For example, when this one APM/data collection tool that
| almost every DevOps team ik was using was pwned early
| last year, CISA notified CISOs days before they
| officially announced it in the news.
| matwood wrote:
| People voted for this and now act surprised.
| computerfriend wrote:
| I'm not sure it's the same people.
| khazhoux wrote:
| It is, though. The word "people" here refers in aggregate
| to the citizens who voted in November. It would be
| equally accurate for me to say "This is what we voted
| for" even though it's not what _I_ voted for.
| t-3 wrote:
| Not voting was the most popular choice among Americans
| eligible to vote in 2024, so "it's what we didn't vote
| for".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Not voting, practically, is empowering the _status quo_.
| Particularly in America, where almost every election
| features intense down-ballot competition.
|
| Someone who didn't vote is more in concordance with the
| current government than someone who voted against it.
| Actions speak louder than words, and not voting is an
| action.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I don't have a dog in this race - I am not even from the
| US.
|
| But, by definition, not voting is an action rather than
| absence of one. What you are doing by not voting is
| giving out a tacit agreement that the people who went and
| vote get to decide who will be elected.
|
| Following that line of thought, by not voting, you
| actively chose the current government, no matter what the
| current government is.
| t-3 wrote:
| I agree, but there are many who say that not voting is
| the only way to show contempt for a system rigged against
| them. Voting would be a tacit endorsement and recognition
| of the legitimacy of that system.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > show contempt for a system rigged against them
|
| Those that don't care to vote are doomed to be ruled by
| those who care.
|
| You still have to pay taxes, and perhaps see a government
| you truly despise making all sorts of decisions that will
| get the system even more rigged against you.
|
| Not voting out of spite is similar to stabbing your own
| head to show contempt for your brain when you have a
| migraine.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| I just realized, this is how Trump will reform the 2028
| elections. Every non-vote will count as a vote for the
| status quo.
|
| "You won't have to vote again" - Trump 2024
| absolutelastone wrote:
| Voting blocks are just simplifications of reality.
| Following that line of thought too far leads to bad
| arguments. The full truth is that any individual voter
| has a negligible effect on the outcome of an election.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > The full truth is that any individual voter has a
| negligible effect on the outcome of an election.
|
| A negligible effect is, mathematically speaking,
| incalculably higher than no effect.
| Yeul wrote:
| We all have a dog in the race. Empires do not fall
| quietly.
| rsanek wrote:
| how so? voter turnout was 64%, so voting was more popular
| than not voting
| dgfitz wrote:
| I think the math would be: ~32% Harris, ~32% Trump, ~36%
| didn't show up.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| I see a big market for "Don't blame me, I didn't bother
| voting" bumper stickers.
| sph wrote:
| People voted for unrealistic pipe dreams. They often do,
| but happens in particular with reactionary and populist
| votes.
| anthonygd wrote:
| I'm mostly seeing people who voted against this continue to
| grumble.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| How do you know this? The USA still has secret
| (Australian) ballots last time I checked.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You checked with what/who?
| bediger4000 wrote:
| I examined my 2024 November general election ballot
| carefully. Ever since 2020's election denial, I've had a
| heightened awareness of election procedure, going so far
| as to read the Colorado Secretary of State's web pages on
| risk limiting audits, and making some attempt to
| understand the math behind them.
|
| My Colorado general election ballot contained nothing I
| could see that would associate me as a registered voter
| to the ballot itself. Colorado ballots are hand marked,
| machine readable, and human readable as has been the best
| and obvious practice since 2000's "hanging chad" debacle.
| There are certainly "index marks" on the ballots so that
| the tallying machines can get squared up, but they don't
| appear different per ballot. I compared to my wife's
| ballot, just in case.
|
| Why do you ask?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Because your comment does nothing against the original
| "I'm mostly seeing people who voted against this continue
| to grumble." comment.
|
| People that vote are not always hush hush about who they
| voted for, and has nothing to do with can you pick their
| particular ballot out of the pile. If I tell you I voted
| for A but B won and now I'm grumbling about the things B
| is doing, there's no need for discussions about ballots
| at all.
|
| Just like you don't need to find someone's secret ballot
| when they're wearing a red MAGA hat.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| and, unfortunately, grumbling is all that they will do
| philipov wrote:
| You mean the same way as with Brexit? We can only _hope_
| that the people who voted for him will have the same
| capacity for regret.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the same way as with Brexit?_
|
| We haven't done anything quite that irreversible yet.
| voidfunc wrote:
| I'm guessing the people who voted for this are not
| surprised. They either expected it, want it, or don't care.
|
| It shouldn't be surprising to anyone here with a
| functioning brain and is roughly aware of what is going on.
| Expect more of this.
| sanderjd wrote:
| The question is whether "don't care" will remain true.
|
| I think what we're seeing in this moment is the overreach
| that precedes the backlash, like clockwork.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| When someone comes in to slash everything, they generally don't
| bother understanding what they are slashing. This is the same
| as when a company hires someone to come in and cut costs,
| generally everything, good or bad, gets cut. That's what's
| happening on the US federal level right now. Eventually some
| things will be picked back up when someone realizes that it
| wasn't a good idea to stop it, but most things are just going
| to be wasted effort.
| beardyw wrote:
| Chesterton's Fence
|
| "There exists in such a case a certain institution or law;
| let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate
| erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes
| gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us
| clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of
| reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of
| it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and
| think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do
| see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it"
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't think Chesterton has much to say about DHS, which
| is relatively new.
| sneak wrote:
| ...and entirely a kneejerk reaction to 9/11, enabling a
| massive public-private wealth transfer graft under the
| false pretense of national security.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a massive public-private wealth transfer_
|
| I'll say this as someone who's moderately wealthy: this
| administration is a massive wealth transfer to those with
| either capital or connections to it. Taking apart these
| committees means less-regulated telecoms, infrastructure
| and financial services. If you're in those spaces, this
| is great for you.
|
| The size of each of those industries entirely dwarfs the
| military-industrial bogeyman, which is largely just being
| transferred from one set of owners (Boeing, Lockheed, _et
| cetera_ ) to another (Musk, Bezos, Lucky, _et cetera_ )
| sneak wrote:
| Sure, but DHS long predates this admin. The list of
| giants suckling at the public teat is huge (Rapiscan,
| anyone?) and spans many different administrations.
|
| One possible upside of the current situation is that the
| very obvious corporate ownership of the federal
| government is dropping the "emperor has clothes"
| pretense. We are ever closer to simply paying taxes to
| Buy-N-Large.
|
| If people don't like it, at least now they can have a
| practical conversation about it (Luigi notwithstanding).
| It's sort of like when Snowden showed us how fucked we
| were/are.
| nradov wrote:
| The 9/11 terrorist attacks might have been the triggering
| event but bringing a bunch of related federal departments
| and agencies under a single umbrella in DHS was probably
| a net positive. The previous structure was tremendously
| inefficient with a lot of duplication of effort and time
| wasted on interdepartmental coordination. Obviously graft
| should be addressed but it's unlikely the total graft was
| any lower before 2002.
| _djo_ wrote:
| However, DHS was almost entirely formed from existing
| departments and agencies that were merely rehoused under
| a new structure, so Chesterton's Fence definitely applies
| to all of those. Even CISA, which is one of the newest
| elements, is now almost a decade old with a lot of
| accumulated expertise and experience.
| sympil wrote:
| The newness of DHS has nothing to do with whether or not
| Chesterton's Fence applies.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Does the metaphor actually include the age of the fence?
| I always thought the idea is just to understand why the
| fence is there before removing it, regardless of its age.
|
| In theory, it should be easier to understand the
| reasoning behind the existence of newer fences, but the
| idea is still to do that step first...
|
| I mean, clearly some people just reject this entire idea
| as creating too much friction, and I can often see their
| point!, but I think we can at least avoid saying "it's a
| good concept, but it just doesn't apply in this case",
| and be honest about just rejecting the concept.
| addicted wrote:
| You seem to have Chesterton's fence completely backwards.
|
| Chesterton's fence can never be an argument against
| creating something new.
|
| The whole point of it is that if you come across a fence
| then that was the result of a conscious human decision
| and subsequent effort, which strongly implies there was a
| reason it was created, and until you understand what that
| reason was, you're taking a risk by destroying the fence.
|
| But if there is "nothing" and you're creating something
| new, Chesterton's fence doesn't apply because the lack of
| existence of anything was not the result of intentional
| human design and effort, therefore there's no evidence
| that the lack of existence of something "had a reason for
| it".
| tptacek wrote:
| Read _The Drift From Domesticity_ , where this whole
| "fence" thing comes from. It's an appeal to (small-c)
| conservatism, to respect and understand traditions and
| norms. It is not a logical rule about it being improper
| to alter absolutely anything without a clear
| understanding of its origins. You can disagree with me
| about its applicability to the newest cabinet branch, but
| our disagreement isn't rooted in me not knowing the
| metaphor.
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| If said fence was across a road that a school bus was
| hurtling towards at 60 mph... you'd stop asking these
| questions and remove it (and maybe put it back after you've
| solved the other emergency).
|
| Several (of the new government) have expressed belief that
| the government is headed towards a catastrophic debt
| overload. In their view, emergency relief is necessary.
|
| Not arguing for or against this view, but that seems to be
| what people voted for.
|
| I am a big fan of Chestertons fence but it doesn't always
| apply.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Republican strategy since the 1980s had been 'starve the
| beast'. That strategy is the deny actual funding and
| instead create debt load in order to kill the government,
| support for government programs, and destroy trust in
| government.
| javawizard wrote:
| I'll counter that it does, allowing that it's perfectly
| fine to adjust the threshold of certainty about a
| particular thing's purpose to suit the circumstances.
|
| If that fence is stopping the school bus from driving off
| the edge of a cliff, for example, I would absolutely not
| want to remove it - and you can bet I'll spare a modicum
| of thought to make sure that's not the case before I yank
| it out of the way.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I liked his story about the street lamp that a mob of
| people wanted to take down. A monk started to suggest
| debating the merits of Light, which seemed like an annoying
| and esoteric point until the mob knocked down the street
| lamp and everyone was left to argue in the dark. That may
| be an analogy to where we are now.
|
| A related point is, it's pretty easy to find people unhappy
| with current systems. But if you ask them what to replace
| those systems with, you'll often find that coalition
| dissolves.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The goal of these people isn't to understand. They don't
| care. They know they're slashing important stuff. It's a
| numbers game to them.
|
| It's like marking read all your emails. The important stuff
| will pop back up.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| It's like the twitter thing. You start shutting off servers
| until someone says, "ouch it hurts". Then you turn it back
| on if you care. You then end up with less servers than you
| started.
| Bhilai wrote:
| and Twitter is bleeding money like anything, unable to
| retain users and advertisers. You may end up with less
| servers but not necessarily a stable and functional
| system.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| Twitter is bleeding money in part because the owner
| refused to play ball with advertisers moderation demands,
| and the majority who don't see any downtime on twitter
| consider it more than "stable and functional".
|
| And for the owner, who probably thinks he's co-piloting
| the strongest government in the world right now and
| attributes part of that success to the platform he
| controls, it is functioning _magnificently_.
|
| ..and that is all that matters to him.
| janalsncm wrote:
| It makes sense when you see Twitter less like a
| traditional business like Apple (whose goal is to turn a
| profit) and more like a means to other political ends.
| Twitter punched way above its weight in cultural
| influence given its relatively small user base. Being
| profitable is a perk, but not the goal.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| Except we're not dealing with software here. The "ouch it
| hurts" once a government initiative has been "turned off"
| could be medical services, or social services, or food,
| or ensuring safe and clean products, or poisoned air or
| water, etc.
| xeromal wrote:
| This is the result of hiring people that will "run the
| country like a business". The human element is removed
| from consideration
| sillyfluke wrote:
| >Except we're not dealing with software here.
|
| You're not, sure. The people who are in charge view the
| whole apparatus as a machine, and the people doing the
| work as cogs in that machine.
| xeromal wrote:
| I didn't write > Except we're not dealing with software
| here
|
| Maybe you're replying to someone else?
| avgDev wrote:
| The majority of voters voted for this. I think it was
| pretty clear they are just going to cut things.
|
| Unfortunate for some people who may be affected by this.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| And if you turn it back on you are now at the point with
| no safety margin.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Chesterton's fence is always lost on populists.
| troyvit wrote:
| The one wrinkle in this, to me, is that Trump spent four
| years as President already. Full disclosure: I despise the
| guy and wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire, BUT ... what
| if he saw a bunch of waste in his first run and therefore
| does understand what he's slashing?
|
| Personally I don't believe that or want to believe that and
| would rather chalk it up to neo-toddlerism, but there's a
| chance right?
| rideontime wrote:
| Considering the surprise he showed on video when being told
| what he's signing, I don't believe he knows what he's
| slashing, let alone understands it.
| troyvit wrote:
| Haha I almost wish I'd seen it.
| generalizations wrote:
| I heard there's going to be those teams of hr+legal+engineer
| doing the cutting - the only reason I can guess there'd be an
| engineer in the mix is if they do intend to understand what
| they're cutting.
| sriram_malhar wrote:
| Rational != principled.
| ggm wrote:
| Yes. I don't want to assume an adversarial posture on this,
| I'm mostly an outsider, observer. I probably can't understand
| nuances in US domestic politics (although i am opposed to
| this kind of semi random behaviour by institutions, I did not
| see this signalled in NOG lists and the like as coming down
| the pipe)
|
| So I'm wondering if this is as simple as cost/benefit? Did
| somebody do the sums and decide the delivery was sub par for
| spend?
|
| The alternatives are mostly very sad: they're fools.
| Replacing a process can be beneficial. There's usually
| overlap.
| viraptor wrote:
| > Did somebody do the sums and decide the delivery was sub
| par for spend?
|
| That would be a very interesting analysis and something to
| learn from. It would also help prevent similar mistakes in
| the future. It's really unlikely someone would go to such
| effort and just keep the results to themselves.
| __loam wrote:
| Slash and burn policies from a reactionary administration that
| doesn't and in fact refuses to think about the second and third
| order consequences of their decisions.
|
| One of the reasons a lot of people are worried about this
| administration is the vibes based policy decisions they seem
| intent on making. Everything is haphazard, arbitrary and
| contradictory. Some of it comes down to personal grievance and
| some of it comes down to favors for people in the business
| sphere who chose to kowtow to this administration.
| Eduard wrote:
| https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/01/trumps-dhs-pick-says-...
|
| Current South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem wants CISA to be
| "refocused" on critical infrastructure and to no longer address
| mis- or disinformation efforts online.
|
| So less/no fact checking, including Trump claims.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Noem has practically zero influence over anything right now.
|
| Her explanation, moreover, doesn't make sense. The
| infrastructure advisory committees are _also_ being
| disbanded.
| Ekaros wrote:
| There is two ways for efficiency, either wipe everything clean
| or well setup a committee to evaluate which committees can be
| eliminate. And usual joke in bureaucracy is that later one will
| discover that even more committees are actually needed.
|
| So the knee jerk reaction of current administration is burning
| it to ground. Which could actually change something.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Especially wrt things setup, created, mandated during thr
| prior admin.
| derbOac wrote:
| Seems like a false dichotomy, between authoritarianism and
| Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
|
| An effective administration would be thoughtful about things
| and reorganize rather than simply cut. So they're either
| being thoughtful and decided something like state sponsored
| infiltration isn't good to investigate or are being
| thoughtless.
| lazide wrote:
| If you stop assuming good intent, I think the answer is fairly
| obvious.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| And that obvious answer is?
| lazide wrote:
| That it is not a good faith attempt to make better or more
| effective investigations, and rather to stop publicly
| 'seeing' high profile problems.
|
| If we don't test or investigate, there are no problems and
| no crimes eh?
| D13Fd wrote:
| They were elected on a mandate to burn it all down, in their
| view, and this is what that looks like.
| tzs wrote:
| I've never understood how 49.8% of the vote is a mandate.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| It isn't, people who mindlessly repeat that this
| administration has a "mandate" are incapable of critical
| thinking.
| skywhopper wrote:
| The "rational" explanation is that Trump's staff are trying to
| clear house of anyone they don't trust will give in to any
| demands they make, and put everyone else who works for the
| government directly or indirectly in a state of fear and
| confusion.
| philipov wrote:
| I see you're making a joke about conservatism, but Trump isn't
| a conservative: he's a radical. His goal is to blow up the
| system, not conserve it. Getting rid of protections is part of
| that.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| It's probably as simple as Trump not wanting agencies to
| consult advisory boards consisting of outside experts since
| they might get in the way of his agenda.
|
| It's probably not a specific decision based on what the
| individual boards have been doing.
| some_random wrote:
| It's because of the misinformation/disinformation mission that
| CISA took on during the Biden admin, it was a boondoggle that
| really pissed off Republicans.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >Can somebody give me a rational take on why?
|
| The current techbro CEO squad is a small group of people who
| got extraordinarily lucky and made a bunch of money.
|
| The techbro CEO squad takes their luck to be ability, and they
| think the fact that they have more money than other people
| means that they're smarter than everyone else. Some members of
| the techbro CEO squad think of themselves as prophets or
| messiahs.
|
| In addition to this, the techbro CEO squad is addicted to money
| and its accumulation. This isn't a "I need more money to live a
| more comfortable retirement" thing, it is a "my sole purpose
| for being is the accumulation of wealth" thing. They are more
| akin to machines whose purpose it is to grab onto as much money
| as possible than they are actual human beings.
|
| The techbro CEO squad's vast wealth has enabled them to
| surround themselves with an army of staff whose only job it is
| to make their dreams a reality and execute their orders. There
| is a vast, impenetrable field of personnel and money that
| insulates them from the reality of the world.
|
| So, they think that they're better than anyone else to the
| point of being god-like, they are sociopaths who only care
| about money, they are surrounded by an army of yes men, and
| they have lost (or never had) any connection to the average
| human being and his or her existence.
|
| They believe that any restriction on their ability to
| accumulate wealth is an assault on their freedom, an enemy to
| be defeated, an injustice to be made right by any means
| possible.
|
| Limits on their ability to pollute, protections for employees
| operating in the heat or cold or around hazardous materials,
| regulations designed to prevent market manipulation or money
| laundering, it is all evil and must be destroyed.
|
| They are willing to dismantle any system to get what they want.
|
| Because they think that they are better than everyone else, the
| techbro CEO squad does not value consensus or institutional
| knowledge that has led to regulation slowly building up over
| centuries in response to events and emergencies: if they don't
| like it, it must go.
|
| So, the slow infiltration of government by the Peter Theil,
| Andreessen and Horowitz, Musk, (but mainly their servants) and
| the rest started a couple of years ago and continues to this
| day.
|
| tl;dr: Billionaires will rape your grandmother's corpse for
| lower taxes, harvest and sell her organs for a laugh, then
| label you a woke communist and kick you off twitter for
| criticizing them.
| beefnugs wrote:
| Shut up TREASONer! To bring efficiency we must burn everything
| to the ground and rehire whomever will work unpaid overtime and
| very low wage. They all happen to be of chinese, russian, and
| north korean descent, but that just means we are winning at the
| deal... ART .. OF ..THE .. DEAL /s
|
| Really though, competence would create the new "efficient"
| thing, hire best of the best and get it running before tearing
| down important security, this is business-leader level
| incompetence being attempted at global super power scale, we
| are going to need a new word for businessjerks breaking things
| they should have never been able to touch
| duke_sam wrote:
| Whatever problems or limitations the existing approach had
| dropping everything on the floor is one of the least helpful ways
| of trying to fix it (assuming good intent).
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| You have to assume competence too. You may have good intent but
| that doesn't help if you don't really know what you are doing
| or are blinded by ideology or some wayward belief.
| stouset wrote:
| Which of the advisory boards do you think were run by
| incompetents or blind adherents to generally unpopular
| opinions?
|
| Do you think it was half? More? Less?
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| I'm talking about the administration that dropped the
| boards, as per the post I was replying to.
| stouset wrote:
| Got it, sorry that I misunderstood. I firmly agree.
| matwood wrote:
| "They are never as dumb as I hoped they were, and I am never as
| smart as I thought I was."
|
| Basically nearly every person who goes into a new situation
| thinking only they can fix it.
| leptons wrote:
| "The same level of awareness that created a problem, cannot
| be used to fix it"
| lazide wrote:
| Burning everything to the ground _is_ a way of demolishing
| something though.
|
| And if your intent is to just destroy it, it's a far more
| effective one than bringing in experts to slowly try to
| disassemble the giant jenga tower without it falling over.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Why would you assume good intent at this point? Their motives
| and plans have been clear for years.
| polotics wrote:
| Is this explainable in any way by the cost of running these
| boards? By the sound of it the cost-benefit of thwarting Salt
| Typhoon is probably not optimal at zero investment.
| perlgeek wrote:
| This seems entirely ideologically motivated to me.
| defrost wrote:
| with a dash of business motivation.
|
| Replacing government run and funded cyber security and threat
| assessment roles with privately owned contracters will be
| quite profitable for a few of the Brolliegarks.
| skywhopper wrote:
| No. The cost of running these is so small as not to be worth
| top officials' time in worrying about them. If they are looking
| to save lots of money, there are far more efficient ways to do
| that. This is just clearing house, establishing a tone, and
| making it clear that expert opinion is not valued.
| sundbry wrote:
| It seems that the Salt Typhoon investigation would be better
| handled by the NSA anyways..
| sophacles wrote:
| Yeah those guys are so good at security. You can tell because
| the tools and plans of theirs that keep leaking sound great!
| tptacek wrote:
| This is running here as a story about cybersecurity, but it's
| apparently every advisory committee at DHS; there were a bunch of
| them, mostly not about technology; for instance, the National
| Commercial Fishing Safety Advisory Committee.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Maybe I've been burned lately and my faith in humanity is
| ebbing but I'm hoping the reference to that specific committee
| isn't about "government sounds stupid if you take it out of
| context, so it's good that we burn it all down"
|
| The Coast Guard having a plan for when large fishing vessels
| get into trouble, and indeed a plan to stop them getting into
| trouble, seems like a good thing to me even if it's grouped
| somewhat incongruously under Department of Homeland Security.
|
| edit: your other comment on this makes me think we are at the
| "letting commercial fisherman, and the coastguards trying to
| rescue them, drown to own the libs" stage, and my faith in
| humanity drops another notch.
| Grum9 wrote:
| The "U.S. Coast Guard was formed by a merger of the U.S.
| Revenue Cutter Service and the U.S. Life-Saving Service on 28
| January 1915" (wiki).
|
| The US Department of Homeland Security "began operations on
| March 1, 2003, after being formed as a result of the Homeland
| Security Act of 2002, enacted in response to the September 11
| attacks" (wiki).
|
| So are you saying that for 78 years of its existence, the
| USCG had no "plan for when large fishing vessels get into
| trouble, and indeed a plan to stop them getting into trouble"
| until the DHS assembled a (assuming this is a thing)
| "National Commercial Fishing Safety Advisory Committee"? You
| dont think theres any redundancy? That just maybe bureaucracy
| cant help but to expand forever every time someone with a
| title has a question that cant be answered immediately by
| someone standing in the room, they have to create a committee
| so they can have someone on speed dial? If the coast guard
| doesnt have plans for this, one wonders what the coast guard
| does all day.
| sympil wrote:
| It's common for organizations to reorganize. It's quite
| possible that the committee was formed for purposes of
| centralization and efficacy. It's also possible it was
| government overreach. What are the justifications for axing
| a committee or regulations and are those justifications
| correct?
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Especially given the genesis of DHS, it would not be
| surprising if that agency vacuumed up a great deal of
| prior teams, groups, etc., in the name of national anti
| terrorism. Cabinet level agencies tend to expand over
| time as DC turf wars ebb and flow.
|
| It could just as easily have been, for example, that back
| in 2002 someone realized USCG was involved in drug and
| weapons interdiction in the waters off Florida, swept
| them up into DHS under anti terror laws, and got the
| fishing boat thing as a freebie. It does not mean that
| USCG were not doing anything on the latter until DHS
| showed up.
| djoldman wrote:
| Here is the National Commercial Fishing Safety Advisory
| Council charter:
|
| https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-09/24_0712_ncfs.
| ..
|
| The activities listed are: 1. "...advise and
| provide recommendations in writing to the Secretary of
| Homeland Security...on matters relating to the safe operation
| of commercial fishing industry vessels" 2. "review
| regulations..." 3. "review marine casualties and
| investigations of vessels..."
| wyldfire wrote:
| So, maybe the new administration did a global "ctrl-f
| regulation, uncheck".
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Or maybe dozens of K-street hotshots carefully
| scrutizined every possible department that could include
| such committees.
|
| Or more likely, somewhere inbetween, thousands of teams,
| mediated by a few hundred of the most influential,
| struggling to get the attention of this or that decision
| maker. Most of them just throwing random things at a wall
| and seeing what sticks.
|
| The truth is HN readers won't know and can't ever know,
| barring a tiny handful who can read the tea leaves
| successfully year after year.
| metadat wrote:
| What's a "K-street hotshot"? K-street is new to me.
|
| _Edit:_ Thanks to @lelandfe for pointing to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Street_(Washington,_D.C.)
|
| * n.b. HN can't handle the period at the end of the link,
| see the jump page link for convenience:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Street
|
| I'll leave this comment up in case there are others this
| term is also new to.
| jovrtn wrote:
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Street_(Washington,_D.C.
| )>
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Again I can't tell if you've quoted three vaguely
| regulation-y phrases in an attempt to justify generic
| contempt for government regulation or if you're backing me
| up with documentary proof that this is a boring sensible
| thing.
|
| As your document says, it is literally the commercial
| fishing industry, shipbuilders, shipowners, equipment
| manufacturers, insurers etc. getting together to swap notes
| on safety because shipwrecks and deaths are not good for
| business.
|
| "members serve as representatives of their respective
| interests, associations, or organizations"
|
| This is not woke communism.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I found a job posting from 2020. I didn't know much about
| this agency so I looked them up. Turns out I didn't know
| much about them because this was established in 2018.
|
| One of the interesting bits about the job posting is
| that, not too surprisingly, there are no salaries:
|
| > All members will serve at their own expense and receive
| no salary or other compensation from the Federal
| Government, with the exception that members may be
| reimbursed for travel and per diem in accordance with
| Federal Travel Regulations.
|
| Which, to me, can read two ways: altruistic people trying
| to make the industry better
|
| OR
|
| You won't even be selected to this committee unless
| you're already wealthy enough to foot the bill yourself
| and shape policy in a way that advantages ones self.
|
| I don't know which way to read it, but if it wasn't
| costing anything, cutting it "for cost savings" can't be
| completely true. Maybe there were other overhead costs,
| but even saying that those costs are $1M/yr is a rounding
| error for the national budget.
|
| https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/10/13/2020
| -22...
| twic wrote:
| This sounds to me like industry bodies such as WG21,
| TC39, JSR expert groups, etc. A way to get people with
| full-time jobs in relevant industries together to plan
| their shared future. I doubt the members of this board
| are wealthy people joining it in their own capacity. As
| such, i don't think it makes sense to consider them as
| either altruistic or self-serving; it's just part of
| their job.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| A very small nitpick but the discretionary budget of the
| US is far smaller than most realize - in 2024 it was only
| 1.75 trillion.
|
| And notably, most military spending is discretionary, so
| the remaining funds for basically all the neat dynamic
| things government can do is less than a trillion.
|
| A million is of course still a rounding error at e.g.
| $900 billion, but it adds up really fast, especially when
| you consider that these are ongoing costs.
| 20after4 wrote:
| I'm having a hard time taking this seriously: "only 1.75
| trillion"
|
| What a ludicrous statement. I mean, I know inflation has
| been bad but not THAT bad. One or two trillion dollars is
| an absolutely enormous amount of money.
| Ekaros wrote:
| It is only what a few thousand per citizen? That is
| pocket money for FAANG engineers so not a big deal...
| emchammer wrote:
| We're not all FAANG engineers.
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| What's the advantage of having this as a government
| agency vs. just an industry association?
| oooyay wrote:
| An advisory counsel may not get paid but they submit
| findings to the Secretary. There's a long tail where the
| government becomes more aware of long standing and
| emergent issues.
|
| Industry associations have no such reach unless
| individual members make it so, and unofficially at that.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Direct line to the head of the agency, who is in a
| position to help advance the goals of the members?
|
| Without the direct line, the association has to rely on
| lobbying/bribing politicians for access.
| nilamo wrote:
| Based on just that text, they're the water version of the
| NTSB and thus one of the most important groups in the
| country.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| NCFSAC isn't the water version of the NTSB.
|
| The NTSB, through its Office of Marine Safety (OMS),
| investigates major marine accidents across all sectors,
| determines probable causes, and issues safety
| recommendations. It operates independently.
|
| In contrast, NCFSAC is an advisory body focused solely on
| commercial fishing safety, providing recommendations but
| not conducting investigations.
| absolutelastone wrote:
| It's probably about mission creep, I'd guess.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| We need to see YoY growth on ship rescues to justify their
| existence. Otherwise they're just a parasitic cost center.
| viraptor wrote:
| That's a terrible idea for a group which is trying to
| prevent ships getting into trouble to begin with. Measuring
| the rescues would be a here incentive that would get more
| people in dangerous situations.
| quesera wrote:
| 'twas surely a joke.
| viraptor wrote:
| You see... Recently powerful people present such stupid
| ideas, and have large approval, that I honestly can't
| tell. Poe's law is going to be more popular than ever
| now.
| quesera wrote:
| I sympathize completely.
| netsharc wrote:
| I mean, the FBI's been doing this with grooming their own
| "terrorists" (embededded agents prodding people to say
| Anti-American things, and then prodding them to perform a
| terrorist attack by supplying them with the plan and bomb
| supplies...).
| derf_ wrote:
| _> ...even if it 's grouped somewhat incongruously under
| Department of Homeland Security._
|
| DHS is arguably a much more appropriate home for the Coast
| Guard than its previous department, Transportation, given all
| of the facets of their actual mission (source: father and
| grandfather both in the Coast Guard for 30+ years).
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| By the numbers though I wouldn't be surprised if the number
| one issue coast guard deals with is drunken recreational
| boaters.
| avs733 wrote:
| I imagine there is a big gap between the things they deal
| with the most and the things they need to plan for the
| most.
|
| I send more emails than anything, but if you tried to get
| me to spend time being trained on sending email they
| wouldn't find your body.
|
| Conversely I design new courses rarely, but when I do it
| matters immensely that it's done well. Resources and
| support and structure to help me do that well when I need
| to is most welcome.
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| Came to say exactly this. Headline is extremely disingenuous
| and meant to provoke a reaction.
| arghandugh wrote:
| The already highly compromised ideologues who seized control of
| the federal government are dismantling it because they said they
| would.
|
| Every comment on this post is frighteningly uninformed about
| current events.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| I'm inclined to write a Firefox addon that just replaces every
| headline out of the US with "Leopards Eating Faces official
| caught eating faces"
| lazide wrote:
| "Then makes weird noises, nothing bad happens, and continues
| eating faces".
|
| If there are no consequences, it just reinforces their power.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I'd argue this government has not just experienced no
| consequences, they've experienced the opposite of no
| consequences. Somehow the American people saw everything
| they'd done and were saying they'd do and then the people
| emphatically voted for it. I'm still gobsmacked.
| lazide wrote:
| Just wait. Hitler was _very_ popular too. Until he
| unequivocally lost, at least.
|
| By then, the country was destroyed along with most of
| it's citizens, but boy howdy was it a ride eh?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Hitler apparently had solid 15-20% support even up to a
| decade after defeat and Nazism generally had 50% support
| (before and after, as a good idea executed badly) so both
| your high and low are off.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I was going to write something pithy about "Sure, we
| screwed up, but we'll get right the next time!", but that
| really doesn't feel funny right now.
| lazide wrote:
| I'm not sure you're saying what you think you're saying.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| hE's HiTlEr!!
|
| Every time. I lived in Austin in the early 2000s and have
| no idea how many "BUSH=HITLER" bumper stickers I saw. It
| was stupid then, it's stupid now.
| lazide wrote:
| Uh huh. How about we check in in about 5 years eh?
|
| And don't worry, I don't think he's literally Hitler.
| Hitler actually went to jail when he got convicted, after
| all.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| This has been a definite problem with the rhetoric
| starting at an intensity of 10/10 and having nowhere to
| go. The other problem is that everything that's happened
| has had people actively diminishing it, to make the
| reaction seem more outrageous, so we're all numb to so
| much of it. I've thought of it as The Boy Who Cried Wolf,
| but that's incorrect, because there's always been a wolf.
| lazide wrote:
| The problem has been - what happens when the truth is so
| obvious, bad, and direct that many are unable to see it?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah. How do you point out the truth when people will
| believe obvious and blatant lies?
| palmfacehn wrote:
| It works both ways.
|
| "Department of Mission Creep, Pork-Barrel, Tax and Spend,
| continues to tax and spend as it endeavors to expand pork-
| barrel mission."
| sneak wrote:
| What has the federal government done for me lately?
|
| Not a casual dismissal; I'm deadly serious. What is so bad
| about dismantling large chunks of the most useless, violent,
| criminal, and wasteful organization in the country?
| saulrh wrote:
| You didn't die of dysentery, for one.
| markdown wrote:
| Or food poisoning from drinking milk.
| jibcage wrote:
| Yes, alright, but apart from the sanitation, the
| medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation,
| roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what has
| the federal government ever done for us?
| t-3 wrote:
| My local government runs all those, federal just provides
| the funding. Redistribution of tax proceeds is enough of
| a job to excuse everything else for you?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _My local government runs all those_
|
| Your local government runs all your roads, canals,
| railroads and public order? Even the largest cities in
| America parcel that out to the federal government.
| t-3 wrote:
| Well, we don't really have much in the way of canals or
| railroads, but they do the actual maintenance and
| construction of roads in the first place. They also
| enforce the traffic laws (which they also set for the
| most part), maintain and install the signage, etc. The
| local and state police are obviously run by local
| government. Federal police are obviously not.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _we don 't really have much in the way of canals or
| railroads_
|
| How do goods get into and out of your town? Are you
| connected to a grid? Do you use GPS?
| t-3 wrote:
| Roads. There's a large port nearby, but it doesn't depend
| on canals. The electrical grid is also maintained by the
| state along with the other states on the same regional
| grid, again, the federal contribution is largely limited
| to funding.
|
| GPS, OK, that's useful and it's existence depend(-s/-ed?)
| on the federal government/military I guess.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Roads_
|
| And who builds the big roads?
|
| > _a large port nearby_
|
| Who makes it viable by protecting international shipping,
| guarding the coast and regulating port infrastructure?
| (If you're on a Great Lake, it absolutely depends on
| canals. That and Canada.)
|
| > _electrical grid is also maintained by the state along
| with the other states on the same regional grid_
|
| Not how North American grids work, outside Alaska, Texas,
| Florida and maybe the SPP. States have influence on NERC
| _through_ the utilities. Grids don't line up neatly with
| state lines, and the whole mess requires regular federal
| coordination.
| John23832 wrote:
| @Jump You're talking to a wall man.
| righthand wrote:
| Then we can cut the federal funding of weapons and
| equipment for police that comes from the federal
| government. Right?
| John23832 wrote:
| "Redistribution of tax proceeds" is a snide way of saying
| "totally facilitating societies value concentration to
| get the things you depend on done".
| t-3 wrote:
| It's also something that could be handled by an excel
| spreadsheet as long as the budget was set. Providing a
| forum for the states to argue about issues is an actually
| useful and non-redundant thing that the federal
| government does - setting the budget wouldn't work
| without it. The facilitation of interstate commerce
| through a federated union is a great thing. A coordinated
| foreign policy and unified military is more effective and
| probably more efficient. The federal government isn't
| useless or lacking any impact at all on my life, but the
| state and local governments are far, far more involved in
| "getting the things I depend on done", and many of the
| things federal government does could probably be done
| without a federal government or with much less of one.
| palmfacehn wrote:
| This is a tired trope. Above, user "sneak" alludes to the
| infamous "Who will build the roads?" gambit. Below, users
| invoke it.
|
| Reasonable people will disagree about their preferences.
| Some will even find polite ways to agree to disagree
| about ideology. Consider if the Federal Government
| nationalized toilet paper production and distribution.
| Perhaps in a few years, posters on this forum would
| assume that they could not perform these basic tasks
| without the state's support.
|
| Just because something is currently a function of the
| public sector, does not mean that it could not be
| achieved better by the private sector. The entire thread
| is filled with hyperbole. The efficacy of either approach
| is not being discussed. There is very little substance
| here. Instead there are two to three sentence zingers
| thrown around. Most of this has been discussed at length
| by authors who specialize in the field.
|
| >When students are taught about public goods, roads and
| highways serve as the default example in virtually every
| economics class. The cliche question every libertarian
| has encountered--"Who will build the roads?"--is
| predicated on the idea that without the state, private
| actors will have no incentive to construct or finance
| roadways because they will be unable to monetize them
| (or, at least, unable to do so sufficiently to meet the
| needs of the community). This assumption is accepted with
| such a degree of faith that few scholars have seen fit to
| even question whether and to what degree private roads
| have been constructed historically.
|
| >But in the early years of the new republic, Americans
| underwent what some historians have described as a
| "turnpike craze." The term "turnpike" specifically refers
| to roadways constructed and operated privately. Early
| Americans, wanting to connect their communities to the
| developing market economy, eagerly subscribed to turnpike
| corporations for local roads. In fact, turnpike
| corporations were among the first for-profit corporations
| in the country, and dramatically widened the population
| of shareholders at a time when corporate stock was rarely
| available to the public.
|
| https://mises.org/mises-wire/who-will-build-roads-anyone-
| who...
| technothrasher wrote:
| > The term "turnpike" specifically refers to roadways
| constructed and operated privately.
|
| I don't know about the rest of the comment, but this is
| definitely not correct. According to the OED, the term
| "turnpike" as a shortening of "turnpike road" pre-dates
| the United States, and generally refers to any toll road,
| not specifically privately operated ones.
| John23832 wrote:
| > Just because something is currently a function of the
| public sector, does not mean that it could not be
| achieved better by the private sector.
|
| The exact opposite is often true. Just because something
| could be done by the private sector, doesn't mean that it
| could not be achieved better by the public sector.
|
| This idea that the invisible hand of the market will keep
| us all clothed, fed, healthy and housed is a false one.
| None of that happens without the subsidies afforded to
| the private sector by the public. And that is in search
| of profit.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Apparently your local government didn't run the
| educational system that so spectacularly failed you very
| well.
| justinclift wrote:
| Heh, good Life of Brian quote that one. ;)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
| Elv13 wrote:
| Well, the stories goes that's actually an Al Capone gift
| to society
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9foi342LXQE comes to mind!
| DonHopkins wrote:
| It put fraudulent get-rich-quick pyramid scheme scammers and
| Bitcoin Ponzi scheme shills like SBF in jail where they
| belong. Why, are you afraid of that happening to you too?
| JustFinishedBSG wrote:
| It's absolutely impossible to answer you because the very
| premise of your question is made in bad faith. You wouldn't
| even need to think, by yourself, very long to get a long list
| of examples; the fact that you somehow can't means you don't
| want to and don't intend to.
| stogot wrote:
| The grandparent comment is abrasive and excessive but to
| some extent that opinion is shared by many. The federal
| government was never intended to be what it is today; the
| technocrats just keep growing it in wasteful directions and
| the general public feels a disconnect. A smaller and leaner
| government with a balanced budget is not a shocking thing
| to ask for.
| whattheheckheck wrote:
| That world is long gone. And impossible to define
| objectively. What's the smallest leanest monopoly of
| violence that keeps the peace so that the most ambitious
| peoples' journies help deliver the greatest standard of
| living increases for the most amount of people while also
| preventing human rights violations and atrocities?
|
| If the govt wasn't meant to do that, then we still have
| those problems and I don't see any interest in any
| individual to solve it.
| Arnt wrote:
| If I understand the polls correctly, the federal
| government _was_ intended to be what it is, in the sense
| that the parts were intentional. Medicare was intended,
| and so on. Each of the parts that have large numbers of
| employees or large budgets was intended.
|
| The only thing that wasn't intended was that the sum of
| the large numbers should be large.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| > The federal government was never intended to be what it
| is today
|
| Many parts of all our government were never intended to
| be what it is today, executive branch included. We have a
| system that at least kind of works, changes should be
| made cautiously because a world-leading economy and
| country is a complex system.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Maintaining our status as the global hegemon requires
| lots of people and money, you don't want to find out what
| happens if we fail to remain the sole global superpower.
| KomradeKeeks wrote:
| Put differently: "What has COBOL done for me lately? Can't we
| just cut out all COBOL code, and replace it today to save
| money on paying COBOL cowboys?"
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Edit: Your website states you live in Berlin, Germany; no,
| the US federal government has done nothing for you. This is a
| troll comment.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you live in Berlin, Germany; no, the US federal
| government has done nothing for you_
|
| I mean...
| throwaway290 wrote:
| It's just the beginning. There's a good breakdown of what it
| would take to reduce the government by Musk's "at least 2
| trillion" and it doesn't look very good (for US citizens). I
| mean he what, is going to cut SpaceX contracts? Please...
|
| https://youtu.be/5fvDfDDZ4Ms
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Musk 's 2 trillion_
|
| There is no evidence this is an actual target for anyone in
| government.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Not for the government. For people outside of the
| government tasked with reducing the government. Musk is one
| of them
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _people outside of the government tasked with reducing
| the government_
|
| My point is we have seen zero evidence of this influence
| in Trump's executive actions thus far. DOGE is analogous
| to the Federalist Society or NRA. Influential. But not
| policy prescriptive.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| 2 trillion is not prescriptive, but is there any
| unambiguous number published officially? Otherwise 2 tril
| is the only figure publicly advertised and I guess TFA is
| a sign they are starting to chip at this campaign promise
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _2 tril is the only figure publicly advertised and I
| guess TFA is a sign they are starting to chip at this
| campaign promise_
|
| Not a campaign promise if it didn't come from the
| campaign!
|
| This isn't cost cutting. The DHS budget hasn't been
| slashed. This is deregulation. (Which _was_ a campaign
| promise.)
| agent281 wrote:
| Musk did backtrack on the $2 trillion goal.
|
| 'Musk told political strategist Mark Penn in an interview
| broadcast on X that the $2 trillion figure was a "best-
| case outcome" and that he thought there was only a "good
| shot" at cutting half that.'
|
| 'That figure was quickly dismissed as implausible by
| budget experts, who said the entire discretionary budget
| was only $1.7 trillion. Musk hadn't waved people off the
| number until Wednesday, and it has been widely cited in
| reports about DOGE's plans. '
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-
| say...
| sharpshadow wrote:
| Blame it on Musk, replace the humans with computers. It could
| be an chronological digitalisation step and since the US is
| leading in the AI field they just start replacing the
| government with artificial intelligence.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Ah so you're saying he not only will not cut his existing
| gov contracts but actually add some more now for "AI
| government"? Sounds great and totally no conflict of
| interest
| nxm wrote:
| Perhaps someone came in and realized that this advisory board
| had 0 benefit and just a waste of tax payer money? If so, I'm
| all for getting rid of wasteful spending
| hbarka wrote:
| The swiftness here really cements the notion of a useful idiot.
| Makes you wonder who crafted the details then the execution.
| hobs wrote:
| You would only need to wonder if you had been paying no
| attention to the clarion call about Project 2025 and what the
| incoming admin was directly planning to do wholesale.
|
| Literally, for months.
| sebazzz wrote:
| There was doubt by many if Project 2025 was actually going to
| be executed.
| hobs wrote:
| I have nothing polite to say about someone either so
| gullible or so obviously a liar.
| phtrivier wrote:
| The core tenet of Muskism, as described at length in Isaacson's
| bio is around those lines:
|
| * question all the rules
|
| * when in doubt, slash the rule, and see what happens
|
| * if it's really bad without it, bring back the rule
|
| * if you don't have to bring back 10% of the rules that you
| slashed, you haven't slashed enough yet
|
| USA is now entering the phase where everything is getting slashed
| - following the will of the majority of -Pennsylvania- the
| people.
|
| At the level of a company, this can bring great efficiencies, and
| make reusable self-driving cancer-free nuclear-fusion based
| rockets. Or crypto scams.
|
| Unfortunately, at the level of a Federal Government, it will
| bring lower taxes, but some of the 10% will end with coffins. And
| crypto scams.
|
| We'll watch from the other side of the Atlantic how the great
| libertarianism experiment goes for the USA.
|
| I expect both impressive improvements, and dramatic karmic irony.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > At the level of a company, this can bring great efficiencies,
| and make reusable self-driving cancer-free nuclear-fusion based
| rockets. Or crypto scams.
|
| This is questionable. There are many times when bureaucracy
| exists for bureaucracy sake. But many, many times they exist
| for a reason.
|
| Get any sufficiently large company and try to understand its
| complexity. Simply slashing it is a recipe for disaster.
|
| > Unfortunately, at the level of a Federal Government, it will
| bring lower taxes, but some of the 10% will end with coffins.
| And crypto scams.
|
| This is highly questionable, especially the "lower taxes" part.
| Governments are not very keen on reducing revenue, more likely
| they will only direct the surplus by cutting off services to
| other things - in the case of US, I wouldn't be surprised if
| they just increase spending in military, for example. Those
| sleasy and juicy defence contracts need funding, you know.
| D13Fd wrote:
| There is essentially no relation to taxes. Everything they
| are cutting falls into the "Other" category in this chart:
|
| https://www.crews.bank/charts/taxes-and-spending
|
| Even if they cut 100% of government functions other than
| entitlements, healthcare, and defense, it would not solve the
| deficit.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Is DHS "other", or "defense"?
|
| Regardless, I think the primary costs created by regulation
| aren't directly to the government budget, but rather knock-
| on effects of compliance incurred by the entire nation's
| economy.
| selectodude wrote:
| DHS would fall under "other".
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| At least officially, the stated goal is to eliminate the
| deficit, which at least Elon has been warning about lately.
|
| If that holds up (and who knows if it will) I wouldn't expect
| any taxes to be cut until the budget is close to balanced.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I wonder if I would be happier if I was as naive as a this.
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| Maybe, but it's not like it hasn't happened before...
| Clinton (yes, a democrat!) campaigned on balancing the
| budget, and iirc it actually was for a few years. In his
| case I don't think taxes changed much either direction.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Oh I was talking specifically about tax cuts because of a
| more efficient government.
|
| Budgets can be balanced, of course. In some contexts it
| may be harder to do.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Clinton made tax increase in 1993 with 39.3% top tax
| rate. It was a big part of the budget balancing that
| resulted in surplus.
| pjc50 wrote:
| I expect a lot of noise about it, then an expansion of the
| deficit for tax cuts, followed by more noise about how evil
| the deficit is.
| avgDev wrote:
| If we look historically since Nixon, Biden had the
| smallest deficit growth of 17%. Trump had 34%.
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-
| and...
|
| Republicans do not bring up deficit when they are in
| power.
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| Interesting... I had looked here:
| https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-
| year-3306306
|
| (quick google search, first result)
|
| Which seems to show a different story. But looks like
| there is a lot of analysis on the numbers which can be
| done? (Eg I saw something in your article about 'Biden
| will contribute 1.9T to the debt by 2031'.. even if he
| hadn't gotten reelected, he wouldn't be in office in
| 2031, so this includes the long-term effects of
| policies?)
| tstrimple wrote:
| On the contrary. Republicans universally "bring up" the
| deficit when in power. They only ever talk about it
| during Democratic administrations though.
| avgDev wrote:
| Many republican candidates talked about deficit,
| including Trump. Then in power introduced budget cuts.
| graemep wrote:
| So the opposite of conservatism in the traditional sense which
| is do not change things?
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| Maybe more like radical libertarianism?
| redeux wrote:
| More like basic authoritarianism.
| generalizations wrote:
| I think authoritarianism would be adding rules and
| bureaucrats, not cutting them.
| redeux wrote:
| By cutting, they're centralizing authority at the top.
| More and different rules will come - some written, many
| not - but not by the people that were in place before the
| change.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Basically this.
|
| Most of the commenters here seem to be taking it on faith that
| these government organizations are necessary and serving a
| crucial function. But the entire thrust of this election is
| that the majority of the country doesn't share that level of
| faith in the federal government.
|
| "When in doubt, slash and see what happens" seems like a highly
| effective, albeit a bit reckless, approach to finding out which
| agencies are truly needed and which are not.
| phtrivier wrote:
| I (sincerely) wish you and your family to not be on the path
| of one of the people who will rush to profit from the lack of
| regulation.
|
| I preemptively nominate "unexpected knock-on effects" as
| "periphrase of the year" for 2025 ;)
| generalizations wrote:
| > following the will of the majority of -Pennsylvania- the
| people.
|
| Or more specifically, the Amish...almost poetic.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| did we mention crypto scams?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _We 'll watch from the other side of the Atlantic how the great
| libertarianism experiment goes for the USA._
|
| Public service announcement: libertarians aren't the ones who
| want to shrink government enough to fit through your bedroom
| door. Those would be the Republicans, who are now in power.
| They are classified in the opposite camp (authoritarians).
| weinzierl wrote:
| Seems the Cybersecurity Executive Orders that dealt with Memory
| Safe Languages and the ONCD Report (which mentioned Rust, if I
| remember correctly) are all gone from whitehouse.gov as well.
|
| The CISA report that dealt with memory safety is still on the
| CISA site. What do these recent developments mean for CISA? Is it
| an independent organization that will continue to exist without
| DHS support or is it essentially dead and its site and reports
| will vanish as well?
| throwaway290 wrote:
| I am mostly ignorant but from hearsay CISA is part of DHS (the
| chief of CISA is a DHS official). doubt Trump loves it because
| he literally fired Krebs directly for not supporting
| misinformation and overthrow attempt in 2020
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Krebs#2020_dismissal)
| evanjrowley wrote:
| CISA has an important job to do, but their mission was put at
| risk when it's leadership under Krebs chose to repeatedly
| violate the first amendment. Elections and Covid-19 are
| topics they've been documented in influencing, but with the
| capability there, what other narratives was it influencing
| that we don't know about?
|
| The legal fight against CISA to stop their censorship was
| lost not on the basis of it being constitutional, but because
| the plaintiffs powerful enough to bring it to court couldn't
| show they had been directly harmed by it. A common stumbling
| block for many court cases for legitimate issues. CISA has
| publicly stated they will be changing their approach as a
| result of these controversies.
| jonstewart wrote:
| It is not hearsay that CISA is part of DHS. This is an easily
| verified fact.
| begueradj wrote:
| > Seems the Cybersecurity Executive Orders that dealt with
| Memory Safe Languages and the ONCD Report (which mentioned
| Rust, if I remember correctly) are all gone from whitehouse.gov
| as well.
|
| Do you have any clues for the "why" ?
| anotherhue wrote:
| It's baffling, traditionally his highest support has come
| from the Rust belt.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Thank you for this comment. Gold. :D
| mapmeld wrote:
| It's a brand new website and old URLs won't work (this has
| been somewhat routine since Obama's first term). I wouldn't
| take that as a sign that a specific executive order is
| rescinded. However it may have been grouped in with other
| Biden tech executive orders (such as AI safety) which are
| being rescinded as excessive regulation
| taejo wrote:
| AFAIK it's typical for whitehouse.gov to be completely
| replaced with every new president
| darknavi wrote:
| Big C Plus Plus must be in play here
| aowiejtli wrote:
| Big Stroustrup?
| qgin wrote:
| You don't need advisory panels if you don't want advice
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Good. From day 1 DHS has been the most Orwellian department of
| the US government, which casually violates our freedom on a
| regular basis. The entire department should be abolished.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Which party created the DHS again?
| hk1337 wrote:
| Pretty sure it was a solid bipartisan achievement.
| avgDev wrote:
| Maybe you can share some of the examples of such infringements
| on our rights.
| zer8k wrote:
| https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-rules-
| warrantless-...
|
| https://epic.org/dhs-disregards-internal-policies-and-
| avoids...
|
| https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone
|
| https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/breaking-dhs-will-
| begin-...
|
| https://www.theverge.com/c/23311333/tsa-history-airport-
| secu...
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us/tsa-screeners-
| win-i...
|
| The list goes on. There's 24 years of history you can comb
| through. The DHS' security theater exists solely to
| compromise the constitutional rights of American citizens. To
| this day there's no evidence they're even that successful at
| their job. The fact the impeachment of Mayorkas failed was
| quite mind-boggling but characteristic of a government that
| doesn't truly believe anyone, even citizens, have certain
| inalienable rights.
|
| The DHS was and still is bipartisan. It's America's
| Staatspolizei.
| settsu wrote:
| It really is despairingly sad how many of these comments
| (assumedly by U.S. citizens) seem to not realize or believe these
| actions will have an effect on them.
|
| Are some of these things normal SOP for a regime change? Sure.
| But to normalize everything under that blanket assumption is just
| foolish.
|
| Unless you are an _exceedingly_ (liquid) wealthy white male, you
| are entirely disposable to the incoming administration. You are
| less than nothing. If anything, you are an inconvenience buried
| deep in the calculations that needs to be factored out of the
| equation because your existence hinders the "progress" being
| sought.
|
| All these pragmatic or, worse, so-called "libertarian" views
| demonstrate a supremely naive, if not outright harmful (to
| yourself and countless others), understanding of what is going to
| be aggressively pursued these next few years.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| The efforts will inherently destabilize the US which, for some,
| will be a really massive gift and this administration will be
| praised both externally and internally. That will close the
| feedback loop since that's primarily what motivates this
| administration.
| honestSysAdmin wrote:
| CISA is the organization that declared that the 2020 election was
| the most secure election ever. So it is expected that CISA would
| get "liquidated" by this new administration.
| honestSysAdmin wrote:
| Fortunately, there are plenty of private sector companies
| investigating Salt Typhoon.
|
| I can speak for the firm I work for. Our clients are effectively
| invulnerable to Salt Typhoon. Yes, I know that sounds like a "big
| claim" but it's really not. We enable our customers to run
| endpoints that aren't based on Windows or macOS. So...
| toasted-subs wrote:
| Probably because of Jewish people like me who had their computers
| hacked and told I wasn't welcome by security cameras near where I
| live.
|
| I live next to former president's and being efficetively made
| into a holocaust victim with no proper recourse by the people
| ment to protect the president's makes me feel like they never
| should have had the job in the first place.
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