[HN Gopher] DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack
___________________________________________________________________
DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack
Author : pulisse
Score : 236 points
Date : 2025-02-05 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.404media.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.404media.co)
| davidt84 wrote:
| They're all _subject_ to FOIA...
| anothername12 wrote:
| The article outlines some reporting changes (from OMB to White
| House chief of staff??) to get around that apparently
| hiatus wrote:
| That remains to be seen. From the same article:
|
| > "Just changing the name alone under the Executive Order
| doesn't affect DOGE's recordkeeping status," Jason R. Baron,
| professor at the University of Maryland and former director
| of litigation at the National Archives and Records
| Administration told 404 Media in a phone call. "The
| administration apparently has made a determination that DOGE
| will be a presidential component subject to the Presidential
| Records Act. However, that will surely be challenged in the
| courts in connection with FOIA lawsuits. Under FOIA, it will
| be for the courts to decide whether under existing DOGE is
| acting more like a federal oversight agency or as a
| presidential component that solely advises the President."
| sitkack wrote:
| DOGE is not acting as an oversight agency, they are locking
| people out of systems and modifying code, so they can't be
| an oversight agency.
|
| Congress needs to do their job here.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Here is the distinction:
|
| > This would make DOGE a Presidential Records Act entity,
| meaning records it creates are not FOIAble until years after a
| president leaves office rather than a Federal Records Act
| entity, which would make its records FOIAble now.
|
| It's how soon you can make a request.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| I thought the whole point was transparency and auditing? Are you
| telling me Musk was lying!?!
|
| So who watches the Watchmen?
| Bhilai wrote:
| Did you forger to add /s or were you actually expecting Musk to
| be transparent and truthful?
| palmotea wrote:
| > Did you forge[t] to add /s or were you actually expecting
| Musk to be transparent and truthful?
|
| Do you remember all his promises about full self driving
| Teslas? He's one of the most honest and truthful people in
| the world, and has been for years.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| The title here is poor. Its not that Slack is subject to FOIA and
| other systems are not - its that the org structure of DOGE is
| being transition from being under OMB to directly under the
| executive office. If they use Slack there it would be presumably
| not be subject to FOIA.
| waltercool wrote:
| What?
|
| Why are you protecting Slack business?
|
| Even at my company I was in charge to replace Slack because is
| damn expensive in comparison to other options like Teams or
| Rocket Chat.
| rhubarbtree wrote:
| More expensive and more better.
| tester756 wrote:
| Is it?
|
| Discord seems to be way better
|
| Teams are good enough
| etchalon wrote:
| No one I know who has been migrated to Teams has been happy
| about that change.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| +1.
|
| The only thing better about teams is that it comes 'free'
| with Microsoft 365. Though you can now take that without
| it for about 1.50 per month less. But slack costs a lot
| more.
|
| On paper they can do the same but slack is just so much
| better in terms of UX. Though i do hate that they dropped
| the IRC bridge. I have been active in slack communities a
| lot less as a result. I always have my IRC open but not
| slack.
| orphea wrote:
| Discord seems to be way better
|
| You can't be serious. The search alone makes it atrocious
| for anything other than game servers. It's a problem enough
| people are trying to use Discord where they should have
| used proper forums.
| tester756 wrote:
| Yet projects like LLVM use it
| nilamo wrote:
| > damn expensive in comparison to [...]
|
| why would you compare Slack to half baked products that have
| only some of Slack's features?
| waltercool wrote:
| It depends about what you need.
|
| Rocketchat is mostly a clone of Slack for a quarter of the
| price.
|
| Teams may not be the exact solution but brings Sharepoint,
| OneDrive and Outlook into a same place. For most companies
| using Microsoft 365 is great as you can comply with security
| policies and easily collaborate and join meeting groups with
| other companies without extra accounts.
|
| Slack works fine for engineering teams, but still very
| expensive and not much professional for the corporate world.
| viraptor wrote:
| Practically, this probably doesn't make a difference. FOIA relies
| on at least one person in the department to not be antagonistic
| towards the process. Otherwise they can just make up excuses.
| That's the standard experience for people sending requests.
|
| I don't think anyone from the new DOGE would actually be helpful
| in responses anyway.
| hx8 wrote:
| If the data is on Slack servers, then Slack may be more than
| willing comply with FOIA.
| vesinisa wrote:
| Slack can't just willy-nilly hand over US government data to
| the public. There's a process that needs to be followed for
| FOIA requests as some classes of information are just not
| public. In fact, most of the data on a government Slack
| server would probably fall under those FOIA exemptions.
| code_runner wrote:
| DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation, and I really do
| hope it will be get reined in before they can cause an issue so
| big that _even trump's croniest cronies_ have to admit what is
| going on.
|
| For someone who claims to love freedom of speech, Elon is pretty
| quick to determine who can say what, and how much access to _his_
| data people have.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Is it actually illegal if it's the pet project of the
| president, who has been given absolute power by the rest of the
| government?
| stanleykm wrote:
| The president isn't a king.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| You and I would like to think that, but he's been given
| carte blanche by the people who should be his checks and
| balances and the supreme court has made anything he does in
| the course of his duties legal.
| dylan604 wrote:
| In what ways is a president restricted from acting like a
| king when the other two bodies of government meant to act
| as a check and balance have capitulated any of those checks
| and essentially give carte blanche to the president?
| outside1234 wrote:
| It is a good question. Hopefully we get an answer before
| we are all bankrupt.
|
| No idea why the markets aren't in freefall at this point.
| psytrancefan wrote:
| This is all the Curtis Yarvin influence. There is that
| period in US history that the president was acting more
| like a king, Taft to FDR. They were doing much more
| executive orders then that we have been use to the past 80
| years.
|
| It all is quite unsettling. Then the fact it is Trump doing
| this is just something else all together too.
|
| I am a bit worried how the country is going to deal with
| this level of change. We aren't even 3 weeks in.
| pohl wrote:
| I would say yes, insofar as the text and SCOTUS
| interpretations of the constitution count as law, so anything
| that violates, for example, the separation of powers would be
| illegal.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| But hasn't the SCOTUS also ruled that anything the
| President does as a part of his duties legal? Where does
| that ruling actually end?
| tdb7893 wrote:
| Congressional inaction isn't assent. The Constitution clearly
| and explicitly gives the power of the purse to Congress (and
| this is also the understanding of I think Madison in the
| Federalist Papers and the interpretation we've had for now
| almost the entire history of the US so there's no reasonable
| dispute of this). Until Congress passes a law allowing this
| the president is constitutionally obligated to take care of
| the laws passed.
|
| Though you do have a point of even if it's illegal who will
| enforce it? The courts have started to some but are
| necessarily reactive and slow.
| blibble wrote:
| the constitution is just an old piece of paper if the
| president controls the supreme court
|
| personally I think this was Godel's Loophole
| jedilord wrote:
| How is it an illegal operation?
| mplewis wrote:
| DOGE does not have the authority to shut down independent
| agencies of the US Government such as USAID.
| zosima wrote:
| DOGE gets its authority through the president. The
| president definitely has the authority to audit and/or stop
| illegal, fraudulent or just wasteful transactions.
|
| The exact shape or form of USAID is also up to the
| president. It was created through an executive order, and
| can of course also be transformed through one.
| msarvar wrote:
| I have seen this regurgitated several times on this site
| now. This is blatantly false, congress passed a law in
| 1998 to establish USAID. The EO was made with authority
| that had been granted by another law. That law does not
| allow the President to abolish it:
|
| > Unless abolished pursuant to the reorganization plan
| submitted under section 6601 of this title, and except as
| provided in section 6562 of this title, there is within
| the Executive branch of Government the United States
| Agency for International Development as an entity
| described in section 104 of title 5.
|
| - 22 U.S.C. SS6563
|
| All it takes is a simple google search.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| The actual law is a high dimensional interaction of all
| active legislation. Predicting what the legal system will
| do is hard and often cannot be achieved with high
| reliability with a google search.
|
| This is why lawyers exist. Presumably doge and trump have
| access to good lawyers. I'm not asserting that they are
| right, just that a shallow legal analysis is error prone
| and looking at a single law likely does not yield useful
| prediction making capability.
| msarvar wrote:
| The OP asserted that USAID was created by EO and that the
| president is free to do what he wants with it. That
| statement is blatantly false. How does court decide is
| not relevant to this discussion, because as you said it
| is speculative.
| generalizations wrote:
| >> It ... can of course also be transformed through one.
|
| > The OP asserted that ... the president is free to do
| what he wants with it.
|
| What's blatantly false is your restatement of what OP
| said. Transformed != do what he wants.
| msarvar wrote:
| Well my luck, turns out he can't do transformations
| either.
|
| > Sec. 7063. (a) Prior Consultation and Notification.--
| Funds appropriated ... may not be used to implement a
| reorganization, redesign, or other plan described in
| subsection (b) by ... the United States Agency for
| International Development ... without prior consultation
| ... with the appropriate congressional committees.
|
| > (b) ... a reorganization, redesign, or other plan shall
| include any action to
|
| > (1) expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize covered
| departments, agencies ...
|
| > (2) expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize the
| United States official presence overseas ...
|
| > (3) expand or reduce the size of the permanent Civil
| Service, Foreign Service, eligible family member, and
| locally employed staff workforce of the Department of
| State and USAID from the staffing levels previously
| justified to the Committees on Appropriations for fiscal
| year 2024.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Also malicious compliance is an option. Maybe they could
| name a single person the official administrator, given
| them an office in a basement and officially comply, while
| effectively shutting everything down. The extent to which
| fulfilling the intent of legislation vs relying on the
| discretion of the executive to interpret it within, and
| as a matter of precedent deferring to executive
| discretion by default in court cases, probably enables
| many more abuses than have been contemplated prior to
| this presidency.
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| It was consolidated into the Department of State as part
| of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of
| 1998 as an agency with an administrator and
| responsibility for administrating the distribution of aid
| under certain preexisting laws. So it is
| straightforwardly outside of the authority of the
| president to disband the agency, as Congress has provided
| that it shall exist. And it is likewise outside of the
| authority of the president to reduce it to an inactive
| status, as it has certain Congressionally-established
| responsibilities that it must perform.
|
| https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/
| cha...
| zosima wrote:
| I didn't say the president could disband it. I said the
| president could transform it.
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| The comment you replied to was discussing the president's
| authority to shut down agencies. (And lack thereof.)
| impulser_ wrote:
| They aren't. They are informing the President and the
| President does it either by EO or asking congress.
| outside1234 wrote:
| The president can't decide to stop spending money
| Congress has passed by EO.
| buzer wrote:
| That sounds weird. I can understand that you cannot take
| money that was promised for thing X and spend in thing Y
| but if you can reduce the X spending I don't think there
| is any issue.
|
| Now I do not know if Congress has explicitly required X
| to provide certain thing. If they did then there might be
| some issue if X fails to provide it. It's probably easy
| to say someone is accountable for it if it's something
| objective (let's say building for Congress) but if it's
| subjective it could get tricky.
| kemayo wrote:
| President doesn't have authority to shut them down by EO
| either. _Congress_ does, yes.
|
| (It's one of those "power of the purse" things. If
| Congress has created an organization and funded it, the
| executive is required to spend that money on it.)
| rastignack wrote:
| Then, the president is acting illegally, and not doge ?
| lupusreal wrote:
| That would make the executive orders illegal, or at best
| invalid. It wouldn't make DOGE illegal. DOGE is private
| citizens giving their opinions about how the government
| should work to a politician who happens to be listening
| to them (for now, but probably not long given that
| politician's track record for getting into feuds with
| former allies.)
|
| Citizens voicing their opinions about the government is
| _clear cut_ First Ammendment activity, of precisely the
| sort the first ammendment was intended to protect in the
| first place. People need to get a grip.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| > DOGE is private citizens giving their opinions about
| how the government should work to a politician who
| happens to be listening to them
|
| No, DOGE was formalized as a division of the US Digital
| Service. Employees of DOGE are federal government
| employees. Some of them, like Elon are "Special
| Government Employees" which is a short-term category and
| avoids certain disclosures.
|
| Creating DOGE and enabling them to have access to certain
| IT systems is legal ... but what data, how much control
| they have, what they can demand of other departments is
| subject to all sorts of laws and controls which may or
| may not be being followed at the moment.
| paulvnickerson wrote:
| > President doesn't have authority to shut them down by
| EO either
|
| I'm not sure they are being shut down. USAID is being
| restructured for instance and folded into the State
| Department.
| kemayo wrote:
| I imagine the legality of that depends on the exact
| details of the law that created the organization. If it
| specifies that it be an independent organization, then
| that's probably not allowed either. If it's just "these
| things must be done" then State could probably handle it.
|
| (Either way, the exact way they've approached it so far
| with the total freeze and shutdown, saying they'll
| _totally_ start doing the job again somewhere else later
| on, seems sketchy.)
| impulser_ wrote:
| Yeah, that why I said both. It depends on what they are
| doing. USAID probably needs congress, but other things
| might just need an EO. The point is DOGE isn't doing
| this, the President is. Elon doesn't have authority that
| Democratics are saying he does. He simply informs the
| President, "Hey, USAID is spending taxpayers money to
| fund xyz in xyz you might want to shut it down". The
| President then goes "Yeah, I think we should shut it down
| let's freeze it and we'll abolish it". Then they go down
| the path of abolishing it and with the USAID they will
| probably get congress to do it. Until then they can
| freeze it because he appoint Marco Rubio has the acting
| admin.
| zzzeek wrote:
| neither have happened and virtually all employees of
| USAID have been put on leave at the orders of the acting
| deputy administrator.
|
| (via CNN) - It is not legal for the president to
| unilaterally "abolish, move, or consolidate USAID". He
| needs to have congressional authorization to do so.
| impulser_ wrote:
| The current acting deputy administrator is Marco Rubio
| who the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State works
| directly for the President.
|
| The President hasn't shut down the USAID yet. They just
| froze it with the intent to abolish it.
| skissane wrote:
| DOGE didn't shut down USAID. Musk talked Trump and Rubio
| into doing it and they did.
|
| Musk is essentially a presidential advisor, and legally an
| advisor can advise the President to do pretty much
| anything. Even if the thing they are advising the President
| to do is illegal, the President is the one who bears the
| legal responsibility for the action, not the advisor.
|
| In really extreme cases, like if Musk were advising Trump
| to commit genocide, or carry out a military coup, or
| transfer a billion dollars out of US Treasury into
| someone's personal bank account, and Trump followed the
| advice, Musk might be held legally liable for having given
| it. But shutting down a government agency isn't anything
| like that. The legality of shutting it down is debatable,
| but even if ultimately held to be illegal, it isn't the
| genocide or military coup or blatant corruption kind of
| illegal.
| zzzeek wrote:
| > Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing and they did.
|
| which is illegal. USAID can only be "shut down" by an act
| of Congress
| skissane wrote:
| It is debatable.
|
| Can Congress constitutionally force the President to
| spend money the President doesn't want to spend?
|
| There is a lack of recent SCOTUS precedents on the topic,
| and you can't assume the current SCOTUS majority will
| answer "Yes". If they answer "No", then the USAID
| shutdown is likely legal.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| It is not debateable at all, the President has to ask
| Congress to rescind appropriated funds if the President
| doesn't want to spend the money allocated by Congress. If
| Congress chooses not to rescind the allocated funds, then
| the president must spend the money.
|
| The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974 is
| explicitly clear about this, there is absolutely no room
| for debate.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_
| Imp...
|
| > Title X of the Act, also known as the Impoundment
| Control Act of 1974, specifies that the president may
| request that Congress rescind appropriated funds. If both
| the Senate and the House of Representatives have not
| approved a rescission proposal (by passing legislation)
| within forty-five days of continuous session, any funds
| being withheld must be made available for obligation.
| Congress is not required to vote on the request and has
| ignored most presidential requests.
| skissane wrote:
| > The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974 is
| explicitly clear about this, there is absolutely no room
| for debate.
|
| Yes, but is that Act constitutional? Has SCOTUS upheld
| its constitutionality? That's where there absolutely is
| room for debate.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _Trump and Rubio [...] did._
|
| Might be illegal.
|
| > _Musk talked Trump and Rubio_
|
| Obviously isn't, no matter how many salutes he does or
| how many emeralds he owns.
| paganel wrote:
| Because it goes after the institutions beloved by the liberal
| consensus (on both "right" and "left").
| jklinger410 wrote:
| > DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation
|
| This narrative infuriates me. Either you are right, and entire
| wings of our government are abetting a coup, or you are wrong,
| and our government has huge back doors that no one is watching.
|
| Both realities reveal something urgently broken with the United
| States. In a way that should scare the entire western world to
| its core.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| DOGE is not illegal. However the legality of some of the
| things they do is under question. The current government,
| including DOGE is being operated like "Just do as many things
| as possible, so that the lawsuits can't keep up". While
| lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many small but
| important items will slip through the cracks and will take
| decades to undo.
|
| Edit: BTW this strategy has always been available, it's just
| that career politicians aren't incentivized to do this for
| "good" because they want long political careers.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| > While lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many
| small but important items will slip through the cracks and
| will take decades to undo.
|
| So the government is designed in such a way that someone
| can do illegal things without those currently running the
| systems simply saying "no?"
|
| They have the power to do the things, and then we have to
| wait for it to be litigated. Watching the cases against
| Trump drop like flies after he got elected, knowing the
| Supreme Court is packed full of members of one party. This
| doesn't seem like a reliable solution.
| gkoberger wrote:
| Yes.
|
| If Elon says one thing and someone else thinks the
| opposite, it comes down to a battle of wills... and Elon
| doesn't back down. Sure, it can go to the courts, but the
| courts only matter if they're listened to or enforced.
| Neither of which will happen here.
| intended wrote:
| The government isn't designed for one party to decide to
| play winner take all politics. It was assumed that people
| would find a way to work together, not that one party
| could punish bipartisanship within its own ranks, and
| then be rewarded for it.
|
| Furthermore America has been moving towards this for
| decades. There has been openly shared plans on how this
| was to be achieved, for multiple different stages. From
| stacking the courts, to gerry mandering, to creating Fox,
| to strategies to stack the SC, to more recently project
| 2025.
|
| ---
|
| I am feeling dumb for having to mention this, after re-
| reading your message. Am i right in suspecting you are
| aware of these strategies and are driving to a specific
| point?
| timeon wrote:
| > It was assumed that people would find a way to work
| together
|
| This is not in line with first-past-the-post voting
| system. If you want to have "people work together" you
| need coalitions.
| intended wrote:
| Congress deadlock is part of that idea, that people have
| to find common cause to work together.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Yes. That's how branches of government are set up.
| Judicial and legislative branches are supposed to keep
| the executive branch in check. Judicial branch is right
| now working to keep things in check but it will take
| time, resources and money to address every small thing.
| Opening the floodgates is a good strategy to overwhelm
| this branch. Which is where the legislative branch comes
| in. If they see the executive branch over reaching, you
| act to stop it. But our legislative branch is not acting
| (on both sides of the aisle). Btw this is the same
| problem a lot of modern democracies are facing and is not
| unique to the US.
| jfengel wrote:
| One side of the aisle is powerless. They can make
| speeches, but all legislative progress requires the
| approval of the Speaker of the House. Who will refer any
| legislation to a committee, which is also controlled by a
| committee chair of the same party.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I don't buy that argument because that side of the aisle
| has been voting with the other side on pretty much
| everything in the new term. I also don't buy this
| argument because like I said in my original comment, the
| tactic of using presidential powers in this way was
| always available, including when this side of the aisle
| had the majority.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Judicial branch has basically no enforcement. They can
| judge all they like, if the other branches or even states
| tell them to shove it up their ass, what can they do?
|
| Not long ago Hawaii told the Supreme Court 'spirit of
| aloha' and the broken paddle trumps _Bruen_. And nothing
| stops them, the Supreme court has a few armed marshalls
| and little else.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Yes that does happen and ideally the executive branch is
| responsible for enforcement, which creates an opportunity
| for the President to say no. But that undermines the
| courts and affects the faith people have in the Judicial
| system. The ramifications of that trust eroding are far
| and wide, and the economy would take a massive hit.
| People will then vote differently in 2 years and hope the
| legislative branch does its job.
|
| One thing to also consider is that sometimes, the
| execution of the court orders will rely on local
| governments and locally elected officials in local
| enforcement bodies (like the Sheriff's Office or the
| local PD). In that case, enforcement will vary across the
| country.
| jfengel wrote:
| Yes. Precisely.
|
| It's not reliable. It worked because Presidents had
| always been decent about it. The alternative would be to
| tie the system even further into knots, just to avoid a
| problem that would require cartoonish villainy.
|
| Until now.
| timeon wrote:
| What would you expect from system that did not change
| much since 18th century? As example France had like 5
| iterations in between.
| randallsquared wrote:
| > _it's just that career politicians aren't incentivized to
| do this for "good" because they want long political
| careers._
|
| That's not why: Reagan, Clinton, W, and Obama all had the
| opportunity for sweeping changes of this magnitude without
| regard to further political careers, but none of them
| _wanted_ to make radical changes. Their view of the US
| government (even Reagan 's!) was "basically doing a good
| job, but maybe needs a tweak". The current administration
| does not appear to share this view, though we'll see how
| that goes.
| ty6853 wrote:
| A simplified view: since FDR the main difference in
| presidential action is whether to crank progress at 1 or
| 11 in the ever expanding book of regulations, favored tax
| nook and crannies, and various benefits plans for pay-to-
| play voters like SS recipients.
|
| Trump is threatening to turn that knob to -1 or lower,
| for good or ill.
| shafyy wrote:
| > _BTW this strategy has always been available, it's just
| that career politicians aren't incentivized to do this for
| "good" because they want long political careers._
|
| Or, you know, maybe it's also because politicians who are
| not total psychos don't want to fuck over an entire country
| for their own gains.
| dangus wrote:
| lol, DOGE is obviously illegal. Trump created a fake
| department of the government without congressional
| appropriation of funds.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > Both realities reveal something urgently broken with the
| United States.
|
| Our government operations expect people to conduct themselves
| as adults.
|
| Clearly, if we survive Elon's coup, we need to encode these
| norms into law.
| neom wrote:
| DW covered this today with a professor who seems to generally
| know what he's talking about and from what I could tell is
| not spinning anything in particular:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpKhyL9PEPQ
|
| He does a good job of explaining the facts of the legalities
| etc.
| taurknaut wrote:
| I'm not really sure if you can call it a "coup" if all
| parties involved admit he was legitimately elected.
| Furthermore, this isn't exactly a bait-and-switch. He told us
| what exactly what he wanted to do. We already knew he would
| try to do illegal stuff. If you break the law and nobody who
| voted for you complains (unrealistic I realize, but bear with
| me), is the rule of law really that secure? If we only
| criticize Trump when he breaks the law, but not the democrats
| when they send arms to Israel in blatant violation of the
| Leahy Laws, how can we get upset when people push the
| boundaries further?
|
| It's been more than 20 years (or might be about that?) that
| we passed the law that said "if you prosecute Bush for
| warcrimes we will invade the Hague". Granted, we were never a
| treaty cosigner (sharing the lovely company of Russia, North
| Korea, and Iran), but it's very convenient we have a "laws
| for thee but not for me" attitude.
|
| Look I'm just saying we've been headed in this direction for
| a while and I don't expect the institutions we're supposed to
| care about preserving doing much to stop it. Americans need
| to get a lot more mad if they want politicians to represent
| them well. I'd hazard a guess most americans have never
| contacted their representatives, vote in their non-swing
| state (effectively making their vote worthless), and pat
| themselves on the back for a civic duty well done. I think
| we've gotten ourselves into a position where politicians who
| have spent most of their careers _failing_ to pass
| legislation now need to pull political ability from who the
| hell knows where to actually follow through on their promise
| to fight facism. Very grim times.
| moogly wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
| jltsiren wrote:
| The broken part is the idea that the legislative and judicial
| branches can act as checks and balances for the executive
| branch. In the end, the executive branch is the only branch
| with the ability to do something. The other two are just a
| bunch of talking heads.
|
| Many other republics have split the executive branch into
| multiple semi-independent centers of power. The head of state
| and the head of government can be separate roles. A directly
| elected president may be responsible for signing laws and
| appointing senior officials, while a prime minister
| subordinate to the parliament may be in charge of running the
| executive branch. And government departments may have dual
| leadership with a politically appointed minister setting the
| directions and a career director appointed by the president
| running the department. Because the director's term is
| independent from the political appointees, they can refuse to
| comply if the minister asks something illegal.
|
| Republics have all kinds of failure modes. For example,
| Hungary was supposed to be a robust parliamentary republic.
| But due to non-proportional elections, slightly over 50% of
| votes were enough for a sufficient supermajority to rewrite
| the constitution.
| nimish wrote:
| Is it? It's explicitly just a rename of the USDS. Them not
| using govslack is stupid though
| dylan604 wrote:
| > hope it will be get reined in before
|
| oops. they already have access to data, and there's no unseeing
| what they've seen.
| ty6853 wrote:
| I was assured right here on HN that the data was public to
| begin with, and downvoted for suggesting it was possible
| unseen corruption. Hopefully if that is true they find it
| just matches what has released publicly.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ty6853&next=42914628.
| ..
| littlestymaar wrote:
| This whole operation is as related to finding corruption
| exhibits as the Moscow trials were to finding traitors in
| the Red Army.
|
| It is a (ridiculous) pretext for purging the system from
| people that the new power deems "uncooperative".
| ty6853 wrote:
| It is hard for me to imagine any entrenched civil service
| being cooperative with plans to shit can their jobs. So
| I'm not sure that means much. Almost by human nature,
| most people are uncooperative ( and deemed such ) with
| plans to end their dental plan and rent money.
| krapp wrote:
| Yeah, I mean Musk has literally tweeted that DOGE is
| "dismantling the radical-left shadow government."[0] This
| is not about efficiency or rooting out corruption, it's
| about persecuting political enemies and purging
| wrongthink.
|
| Which was something people here screamed bloody murder
| about when they accused Biden of doing it, just by
| _asking_ Twitter to moderate content, but I guess _this_
| is all fine now.
|
| [0]https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886840365329608708
| ty6853 wrote:
| I feel your unease, but the right dismantling the shadow
| left, and the left dismantling the shadow right hopefully
| provides some balance. Part of the reason why i like
| living in a purple state is both sides disarm each other.
| dangus wrote:
| Of course there is "unseeing." They can be tried for rather
| obvious crimes and thrown in prison.
| whatever1 wrote:
| They will get a blanket pardon anyway. So in the end we
| will have to apologize to them.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Trump already pardoned 1600 violent insurectionists. If
| they get tried now, they'll be out of jail the very next
| day.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| > DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation
|
| What laws does it break?
|
| I like to watch those "Auditors" on Youtube who film in public
| places. Every cop assures them that filming a police officer /
| police station / inside a public library is illegal. About 25%
| of the time they detain them, and about 10% of the time they
| arrest them.
|
| When they ask what law they've broken, they never get a
| straight answer.
| ty6853 wrote:
| I think the one they're going for is that being a senior
| officer with material authority requires confirmation per the
| appointments clause, constitutional law instead of a federal
| statute.
|
| Whether musk is operating as such seems dubious but possible.
| wavefunction wrote:
| US' Privacy Act of 1974
| hiatus wrote:
| Some of the exceptions include:
|
| - For routine uses within a U.S. government agency
|
| - For law enforcement purposes
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Presidential Pardons
| tartoran wrote:
| What if Trump dies in the office and doesn't get to
| pardon him?
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Is DOGE an advisory body or real government audit agency. It
| is acting like the later but is solely creation of Musk.
|
| https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/federal-
| unions-s...
|
| https://www.hrdive.com/news/federal-workers-unions-
| challenge...
| olalonde wrote:
| Stupid question but don't the Republicans control all branches
| of government? Couldn't they just declare whatever DOGE is
| doing legal (if it's indeed illegal)?
| kemayo wrote:
| They could+, but they haven't.
|
| +: They actually couldn't, without stripping the filibuster
| from the Senate.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| With the cross symbol I thought you were proposing to...
| Deal with doge in an unconventional, yet fast, disruptive
| and mangionesque way
| kemayo wrote:
| It's a dagger symbol! Which... I guess doesn't entirely
| avert that implication.
|
| (But really, it's the traditional second tier footnote
| symbol after an asterisk, which I couldn't use here
| because it triggers italics.)
| olalonde wrote:
| Not familiar with "filibuster". Does it mean that Democrats
| could effectively prevent a potential "DOGE is legal" bill
| from passing by endlessly debating it?
| plagiarist wrote:
| Oh, that would be nice for a change. My understanding is
| they no longer debate it, they just send an email to the
| Senate saying "I filibuster" and the bill is tabled.
| kemayo wrote:
| Originally, yes. These days a "talking filibuster" like
| that is almost never used, apart from occasionally when
| someone wants to be dramatic about it.
|
| There's a thing called a vote for cloture, meaning a vote
| you take about whether to stop debate and vote on the
| issue. In the US Senate, a cloture vote requires 60 votes
| (out of 100) to pass. So there's a "procedural
| filibuster", whereby one side will announce that they're
| not going to vote for cloture, but the other side won't
| force them to _actually_ keep talking so the chamber can
| move on and do other things.
|
| This used to be quite uncommon, and things would
| regularly become law with a bare 50%+1 majority, but
| nowadays -- basically since ~2008 -- there's a de-facto
| "nothing that can't get 60% support in the Senate can
| become law" rule in effect. With a specific carve-out for
| a few things that're not allowed to be filibustered,
| mostly around passing a budget, that are just barely
| keeping the government functioning.
|
| _Personally_ , I intensely dislike this system.
| dangus wrote:
| That's like asking if Darth Vader would release a report on
| whether the destruction of Alderaan was legal.
| tmaly wrote:
| I just saw a thread by a lawyer on X that broke down the EO
| creating DOGE.
|
| It was very interesting how they got around things.
| thr0waway001 wrote:
| Ah ha ha like dogcoin
| yapyap wrote:
| Man I'd hate to work in such a volatile environment.
| malfist wrote:
| That's probably part of the goal. Get people to quit and not
| replace them. One party has been on the "break the government
| to prove the government doesn't work" warpath for decades now
| the_optimist wrote:
| Perhaps revisit your premise prior to asserting malicious
| intent.
| francisofascii wrote:
| I agree. What's worrying is any stable working environment that
| exists now can become volatile like this overnight. It is more
| uncommon with Federal employment, but is pretty common in the
| private sector unfortunately.
| paganel wrote:
| > used by journalists and lawyers to hold government accountable.
|
| The journalists from Politico have just been ousted by DOGE has
| having had received $8 million in annual funding from USAID
| (another Government-run institution that has been ousted by the
| same DOGE), so I can understand how come Musk would want to keep
| DOGE's dealing away from journalists that might see this agency
| as very antithetic to their (the journalists') material well-
| being.
| intended wrote:
| If you assume that USAID was evil from the oustset, its easy to
| conclude that everything its tendrils touched was also tainted.
| Kinda like evil.
|
| But, the sad part is, that this also means its an idea which is
| impossible to challenge, because you cant trust anyone who
| counters it.
| paganel wrote:
| > If you assume that USAID was evil from the oustset,
|
| I'm not "assuming", I know that for a fact.
|
| > because you cant trust anyone who counters it.
|
| Do you happen to live in a part of the Globe that has been
| under direct USAID (and NED) influence? Something tells me
| you don't, I do (I live in Eastern Europe), so allow me not
| to receive lessons from people who know nothing, absolutely
| nothing, about this type of organisations.
| intended wrote:
| I do! It seems we benefited significantly from them. Who
| knew.
|
| Also, where I'm from was historically on America's shit
| list. Still benefited from it.
| kemayo wrote:
| USAID gave Politico $24k, not $8M.
|
| The entire US govt _did_ give Politico about $8.2M, presumably
| in the form of buying their subscription products. Politico
| really does do deep-dive analysis behind a paywall, and I can
| see why government people might want access. (I have no idea
| how justified this is, honestly, but I wouldn 't immediately
| dismiss it.)
|
| This seems like a fair enough summary:
| https://www.axios.com/2025/02/05/politico-trump-musk-governm...
|
| Or dig through
| https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c...
| yourself if you want, I guess. That site is super-overloaded at
| the moment, unfortunately.
| floatrock wrote:
| Seriously. Headline here really is "Government is buying data
| from a data provider." Now do Starlink. Or Palantir.
|
| I've yet to hear why this is a corrupt or inappropriate
| purchase. I might change my mind if I hear evidence on why
| this was an inappropriate contract, but right now this reeks
| of dictator-grade fear-targeting of political opponents.
|
| This is why a government is supposed to have an independent
| judiciary. Or inspector generals who haven't been purged.
| dralley wrote:
| Wrong. _The entire federal government_ has $8 million dollars
| worth of _Politico Pro subscriptions_ (like Bloomberg terminal
| for public policy).
|
| USAID spent $24k on those subscriptions.
|
| Musk is full of shit. I have yet to see an example of such a
| claim that didn't end up being massively exaggerated or
| outright false.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Employees working for the agency now known as DOGE have been
| ordered to stop using Slack _while government lawyers attempt to
| transition the agency to one that is not subject to the Freedom
| of Information Act,_
|
| > The messages indicate that, under Elon Musk's leadership, DOGE
| is actively taking steps to make sure its communications and
| records are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act,
|
| > This would make DOGE a Presidential Records Act entity, meaning
| records it creates are not FOIAble until years after a president
| leaves office rather than a Federal Records Act entity, which
| would make its records FOIAble now.
|
| Regardless of where you stand on the topic of cutting federal
| budgets, the lack of transparency should be alarming to everyone.
|
| Broad actions like this should have the utmost transparency, not
| a team of lawyers doing their best legal maneuvering to keep it
| out of the public's reach.
| wnevets wrote:
| They should be ordered directly to prison.
| adrien79 wrote:
| BOYCOTT TESLA, TWITTER, SPACEX. SELL YOUR $TSLA STOCK. Do it for
| America. And for the world. The rest of the planet is watching.
| America, get your shit together!!
| bdangubic wrote:
| was about to hit the international space station for the
| weekend but imma boycott the shit out of spacex now :)
|
| and worry not, anyone owning tesla stock is getting their
| punishment eventually :)
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I can see the Founders of the US now, one of the things they did
| when setting up the government was organise it so a South African
| billionaire should be able to take over and reorganise it with
| zero accountability.
| torginus wrote:
| I don't have an opinion on the political aspects of this, but I
| find the choice of uploading all your data to a central server by
| default an insane choice, and I hate that this is the default in
| the modern world.
|
| Why can't software come in a box, like it used to - then it can
| run on a machine that I control, and only talk to machines that I
| control too.
|
| Then it's not a matter of belief and blind trust and hoping
| against hope that nobody's spying on me - it's the matter of
| basic common sense and due diligence.
| krapp wrote:
| >Why can't software come in a box, like it used to - then it
| can run on a machine that I control, and only talk to machines
| that I control too.
|
| At some point you will want or need to talk to machines you
| don't control, because society consists of people other than
| yourself, and machines that they control. And in this hell of
| other people, "basic common sense and due diligence" are
| synonymous with blind trust.
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