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DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

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Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#81

Post by tdb7893 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #50
code_runner wrote: post #41

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.

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?

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#82

Post by outside1234 »

impulser_ wrote: post #73
mplewis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE does not have the authority to shut down independent agencies of the US Government such as USAID.

They aren't. They are informing the President and the President does it either by EO or asking congress.

The president can't decide to stop spending money Congress has passed by EO.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#83

Post by kemayo »

impulser_ wrote: post #73
mplewis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE does not have the authority to shut down independent agencies of the US Government such as USAID.

They aren't. They are informing the President and the President does it either by EO or asking congress.

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.)

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#84

Post by slashdev »

code_runner wrote: post #41

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.

[flagged]

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#85

Post by pfannkuchen »

msarvar wrote: post #78
zosima wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#86

Post by aeternum »

code_runner wrote: post #41

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.

What do you think about the legality of each federal department having millions in kickbacks to Politico in the form of hidden premium subscriptions?

What about USAID being used to pay celebrities but only those that support one of the political parties?

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#87

Post by zzzeek »

impulser_ wrote: post #73
mplewis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE does not have the authority to shut down independent agencies of the US Government such as USAID.

They aren't. They are informing the President and the President does it either by EO or asking congress.

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#88

Post by ty6853 »

dylan604 wrote: post #65
code_runner wrote: post #41

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.

> hope it will be get reined in before oops. they already have access to data, and there's no unseeing what they've seen.

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...

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#89

Post by outside1234 »

dylan604 wrote: post #68
stanleykm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president isn’t a king.

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?

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#90

Post by paganel »

> 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.

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