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DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

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Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#101

Post by intended »

paganel wrote: post #90

> 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 jour…

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#102

Post by neom »

jklinger410 wrote: post #58
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.

> 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.

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#103

Post by byroot »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #39
byroot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not, but there would definitely be some sort of resistance, strikes, refusal to comply, etc. In France public service employees have a very high level of protection (they're very hard to fire), and are legally allowed to disobey "obviously illegal" orders, I suppose this case would qualify? All of this was implemented immediately after WW2 as a way to prevent a potential authoritarian ruler from using public…

> In France public service employees have a very high level of protection (they're very hard to fire), and are legally allowed to disobey "obviously illegal" orders This would seem to imply that a French public servant who obeys an "obviously illegal" order is both knowingly (it's obvious) and willfully (there's no requirement to obey) breaking the law. What are the penalties for that?

> knowingly (it's obvious)

The term used in French isn't quite as strong as "obviously", it's "manifestement illegal". See Wordreference: https://www.wordreference.com/fren/manifestement . Apparently English has "manifestly" but I never heard it so unsure if it's a good translation.

> What are the penalties for that?

I had to look it up, it seems you're considered complicit in whatever the order was about. Basically the "Nuremberg defense" AKA "I just followed orders" is void here.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#104

Post by rastignack »

kemayo wrote: post #83
impulser_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Then, the president is acting illegally, and not doge ?

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#105

Post by [deleted] »

byroot wrote: post #33
cluckindan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heads would roll. Literally.

Probably not, but there would definitely be some sort of resistance, strikes, refusal to comply, etc. In France public service employees have a very high level of protection (they're very hard to fire), and are legally allowed to disobey "obviously illegal" orders, I suppose this case would qualify? All of this was implemented immediately after WW2 as a way to prevent a potential authoritarian ruler from using public…

[deleted]

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#106

Post by jondwillis »

aeternum wrote: post #86
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?

Since we are doing whataboutism, let's also bring up the ~$1 trillion PPP program, ripe with fraud, enabled and designed by Donald Trump, which helped kick off the current wave of inflation.

>The cost per job saved for one year was $169,000 to $258,000, which was much higher than the average amount—$58,200—paid in wages and benefits to small-business employees in 2020. [1]

[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2...

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#107

Post by lupusreal »

kemayo wrote: post #83
impulser_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#108

Post by darth_avocado »

jklinger410 wrote: post #69
darth_avocado wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, i…

> 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 flie…

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#109

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

pohl wrote: post #67
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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?

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#110

Post by affinepplan »

slashdev wrote: post #84
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]

please don't spread misinformation. it clearly has power, and has been demonstrably exercising that power.

> to shine a light into dark places of government spending

yes, I'm aware that this is the Official Position of the State. but quite obviously that is not what it is actually doing

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