[HN Gopher] DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts
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DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts
Author : contemporary343
Score : 71 points
Date : 2025-02-06 20:55 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| strangeloops85 wrote:
| If you're having a team going into every bit of government data,
| you might want to vet them. Beyond eugenicists and racists, if
| they're getting anywhere close to SCIFs, make sure they fill out
| that SF-86 accurately. And maybe even if they're not, have them
| go through regular clearance procedures.
|
| Yes, it takes time. But right now, DOGE seems like a huge
| security risk for the USG what with it setting up backdoors
| everywhere, and with unvetted staff working for it.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| They DID vet them to make sure they were all eugenicists and
| racists and incels, and he's only being fired because he had
| the audacity to take down his racist posts, which makes him
| look weak and woke in Musk's and Trump's eyes.
| Nevermark wrote:
| I wish that made no sense. But instead we get dark synergy...
|
| Cruelty is the point.
|
| Chaos is the point.
|
| Stupidity is the point.
|
| Lies are the point.
|
| Racism/anti-"different" (including different ideas) is the
| point.
|
| Impunity is the point.
|
| Destruction is the point.
|
| What they have in common are in-our-face demonstrations of
| centralizing power, designed to encourage their base
| vicariously while stealing their lunch.
|
| And discourage, silence, excommunicate, dis-home and dis-
| connect any competent detractors in any branch of government
| or appropriately hard news.
|
| They know the value of cutting the cost of everything, with
| no concept of the loss of value sans anything.
| exceptione wrote:
| I see your point, but talking about risks after a de-facto
| heist could easily lead to misunderstandings. This intelligence
| operation is a done deal.
|
| If concerned people debate future risks instead, the other team
| has scored an A+.
|
| If you want to mitigate what had happened, you need to bring
| your own extremely resourced criminals. I really feel sorry for
| all affected.
| ilaksh wrote:
| My take is that we actually need more efficiency in government,
| and from a technology standpoint, they might have some good
| ideas.
|
| I have a very pro-technology worldview. I'm independent leaning
| left but I thought that Democrats have been extreme, wasteful
| and untrustworthy in their own ways.
|
| It's very unfortunate that this stuff like efficiency and
| technology integration is now associated so closely with neo-
| Nazis. Maybe I just didn't want to believe it. But when Musk
| did those Hitler salutes, I had to accept a new reality.
|
| I don't think cutting programs or screwing up code is our main
| worry. The Secretary of Defense is literally an alcoholic neo-
| Nazi Crusader who talks about almost nothing besides getting
| rid of affirmative action and how evil Muslims are.
|
| I am scared that they will actually try to deport millions of
| people, there could be massive detainment camps that become
| concentration camps. You only need a lack of food and one or
| two really serious neo-Nazis for that to become a death camp.
|
| I am also afraid that they might trigger WWIII, fully fueled by
| racial hatred and dehumanization of Chinese people.
|
| I am almost scared to write posts like this because who knows
| if they will start hunting down people from the internet.
| exceptione wrote:
| > It's very unfortunate that this stuff like efficiency and
| technology integration is now associated so closely with neo-
| Nazis
|
| Do not mistake the Nazi's too. They were very efficient and
| highly organized. IBM played a great role in delivering the
| tech the Nazi's needed.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Maybe it's not that new then.. after all, I guess the Nazis
| did a lot of great work on rockets.. but very unfortunate.
| That association clouds people's views of technology in
| general. Technology itself is not biased or ignorant or
| evil. It's a lever. It should be able to help everyone.
| craigmcnamara wrote:
| DOGE is just a dipshit rebrand of the US Digital Service,
| which was created under the Obama administration, and did
| bring real improvements and efficiency to the Federal
| Government. They're behind the IRS free to file program that
| I heard was just killed off. They also did login.gov. There
| is a huge number of lower profile improvements across the
| government that they're responsible for.
|
| DOGE is a farce and I hate that I have to type the name of a
| joke from 2009 because Elon is a child and Trump is a crook.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| That these concerns are being dismissed as partisan shows how
| far through the looking glass we truly are. Either _the party
| of law and order_ doesn't understand how risky this activity
| is, doesn't care or both -- any of which are _extremely_
| troubling. We should also all be sure to keep this in mind next
| time they're crying crocodile tears about TikTok or DeepSeek.
|
| I just emailed my representative (Mike Lawler) and I suggest
| everyone who's concerned about this activity and capable of
| offering compelling insights into why this activity (active
| data breach) is so concerning do the same. Perhaps they're
| somehow blissfully unaware of the security implications of
| these folks accessing data (it's only read-only access, though,
| so don't worry! /s), copying it to ... wherever?, running it
| through ChatGPT or tinkering in production on critical Cobol
| systems is and we can enlighten them.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| > I just emailed my representative (Mike Lawler) and I
| suggest everyone who's concerned...
|
| The conventional wisdom is that emails so nothing and only
| calls matter. I don't know Rep. Lawler-- maybe his office is
| more tech savvy. For those of us who have older
| Representatives and Senators calls are probably for the best.
|
| I have no dog in this race, but I used this site to assist in
| making calls: https://5calls.org/
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Either _the party of law and order_ doesn't understand how
| risky this activity is, doesn't care or both
|
| If they hadn't already obviously ceded that title before
| 2025, they certainly did when over a thousand duly convicted
| violent partisan offenders were pardoned.
|
| These weren't just random people, they were _accomplices_ of
| the person who pardoned them.
|
| We're in an autocratic United States now, where no crime, no
| matter how violent, committed by members of the regime will
| be prosecuted.
| hapticmonkey wrote:
| "Law and order" has long been code words for using the power
| of the state to enforce hierarchies that benefits those
| shouting "law and order".
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It doesn't matter if you write or call your representative.
| He knows that if he goes against President Musk, Musk will
| throw his unlimited funds at someone so he gets primaried and
| even before that Musk will use his bully pulpit - Twitter -
| to berate him.
|
| He is in a D+3 district that usually votes Democratic. That
| would usually moderate him. But see above about he would have
| to first survive a primary.
| hypothesis wrote:
| Threats of violence is what drives all those inexplicable
| last minute vote changes in congress, simple as that.
| talldayo wrote:
| The other day, I read a comment on the Wired post stating:
| "Really, all this article says is that if you are an auditor for
| the commission appointed by the president, we will make sure that
| this comes up in an aggressively negative way when somebody who
| you want to work for googles you. It's pure intimidation,
| masquerading as journalism."
|
| Well, it seems these young men were chosen for qualities that
| should make them feel intimidated. It's our moral imperative as
| Americans to hold these people accountable, criminally
| accountable if necessary. If these men are promoting racist and
| un-American sentiments with the intention of not being caught,
| they are trying to fool the entire nation at once. Clearly that
| cannot persist.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I think that unfortunately what's been proven with recent
| developments is that in some way racism is very American.
| craigmcnamara wrote:
| Always has been. Trying to right that wrong gets the most
| violent pushback every single time.
| hackermeows wrote:
| Wonder how Elon is getting the clearance for this , dude smoked
| weed on camera , isn't that automatically disqualifying for gov
| clearance ?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Presidential mandate
| Tostino wrote:
| To become a dictator? This isn't in the presidential powers.
| Congress needs to pass a bill if they want to do this.
| snailmailstare wrote:
| The majority of people in each check or balance are from a
| political party that believes since the 1980s that their
| aims are achieved by mismanaging the federal government so
| that power returns to the states if they are talking to
| their loyal voters or better yet they can pay their friends
| with privatization if they are talking to their donors.
| zzzeek wrote:
| He doesn't have clearance. They march into the offices, demand
| access, whoever is there says "no", then that person gets fired
| (placed "on leave") ten minutes later. Rinse and repeat.
| metalman wrote:
| "This is why it's an illegal coup."
|
| Vs ? what? a legal coup? or the other varietys like these
| agencies under scruteny fund worldwide?
| Havoc wrote:
| They seem to be coloring entirely outside the lines here. Much
| like trump with his bulk exec order and see what sticks
| approach
| alexjplant wrote:
| While there are guidelines in the form of an unclassified,
| gov't-hosted desk reference [1] ultimate discretion seems to be
| left to adjudicators. There are public archives [2] that talk
| about such decisions made in tricky cases of criminal activity,
| financial malfeasance, potential blackmail, etc. I've seen at
| least one where somebody admitted to doing hard drugs while
| having a clearance and actually got upgraded to a TS (though
| this was ~10 years ago and I can't find it via search engine).
|
| [1]
| https://www.dhra.mil/portals/52/documents/perserec/adr_versi...
|
| [2] https://doha.ogc.osd.mil/Industrial-Security-
| Program/Industr...
| throw16180339 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/gZvrj
| QnfbagsHt wrote:
| The bigger picture problem is that Musk's grandfather Haldeman
| was part of the technocracy movement, which wanted to implement
| the "North American Technate", which includes Canada, Greenland
| and much of middle America:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement#The_Techn...
|
| The agenda 2025 is eerily similar, including the proposed land
| grabs and a tech style governance by "elites".
| harmmonica wrote:
| Note that it appears that a judge ruled that Elez did in fact
| have clearance to access the treasury payments system, one of
| only two people on DOGE, at least before Elez' resignation, to
| have "read only" access (Elon is not supposed to have access).
|
| From Bloomberg: https://archive.is/XhEyF
|
| Leaves me with two ways to think about this if the reporting is
| true: Elon Musk and Scott Bessent (treasury secretary) gave a
| self-proclaimed (not accused) racist read-only access to the
| treasury payments system because they either knew/know what he
| stands for or they didn't know what he stands for because they
| didn't do a background check at the level of the WSJ reporters
| reporting on this. Either way it's an indictment of them and/or
| their process. Is there another potential option other than I
| guess "he's a good hacker and we don't discriminate against
| racists when they are good at what they do"? That is a poor
| attempt at levity, folks.
|
| And I get it. Everyone left of center thinks Elon is genuinely a
| a dyed-in-the-wool racist. But for the non-racists who support
| what Trump is doing and aren't so easily convinced that what he's
| doing is a) irresponsible (at best) or b) an actual non-violent
| coup (at worst), the best way forward is to share the facts with
| those folks. Heart and minds and all... Sorry to be preachy.
| archagon wrote:
| I wonder why he resigned. Half the administration seems to have
| ties to white supremacy, if not ouright neo-nazism.
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(page generated 2025-02-06 23:01 UTC)