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DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

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Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#141

Post by vesinisa »

hx8 wrote: post #128
viraptor wrote: post #29

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.

If the data is on Slack servers, then Slack may be more than willing comply with FOIA.

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#142

Post by jacobr1 »

lupusreal wrote: post #107
kemayo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Am…

> 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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#143

Post by generalizations »

msarvar wrote: post #94
pfannkuchen wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

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.

[flagged]

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#144

Post by kemayo »

paulvnickerson wrote: post #118
kemayo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

> 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.

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 approach they've taken so far with the total freeze and shutdown, then later saying they'll totally start doing the job again somewhere else later on, seems sketchy.)

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#145

Post by Tool_of_Society »

dmitrygr wrote: post #138
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.

No personal option stated or implied, but: exactly this was clearly promised before the election, and it is being delivered right now. The people voted for this: a majority of the American people. Democracy, no?

He didn't even get a majority of the 60% of voter aged Americans who voted.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#146

Post by ty6853 »

darth_avocado wrote: post #108
jklinger410 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#147

Post by amarcheschi »

dmitrygr wrote: post #138
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.

No personal option stated or implied, but: exactly this was clearly promised before the election, and it is being delivered right now. The people voted for this: a majority of the American people. Democracy, no?

I do not get why electing a leader with anti democratic tendencies should be viewed as the pinnacle of democracy

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#148

Post by tdb7893 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #138
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.

No personal option stated or implied, but: exactly this was clearly promised before the election, and it is being delivered right now. The people voted for this: a majority of the American people. Democracy, no?

In American democracy winning a single election doesn't change the constitution or even the laws at all. There are separate processes for those things that haven't happened. The monetary decisions the executive branch is making right now are explicitly reserved for Congress, which notably hasn't passed a law for it.

Voting for someone doesn't imply they aren't bound by existing rules.

Edit: There's also more to be said here about restrictions on American democracy (e.g. gerrymandering, first past the post, disenfranchisement, financial barriers to entry for candidates, lack of choice for political parties, etc) that make the US not some bastion for democratic governance. I'm not an expert but the current chaos is at least partially enabled by the flaws in American democracy (rigid 2 party control is a good example of a generally undemocratic force, many Americans would prefer more parties but aren't being represented, that is enabling executive overreach).

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#149

Post by jacobr1 »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #85
msarvar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

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.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#150

Post by amarcheschi »

kemayo wrote: post #123
olalonde wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

They could†, but they haven't. †: They actually couldn't, without stripping the filibuster from the Senate.

With the cross symbol I thought you were proposing to... Deal with doge in an unconventional, yet fast, disruptive and mangionesque way
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