DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack • Hacker News Board

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#381

Post by shafyy » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 12:55 PM UTC

gitaarik wrote: post #296

shafyy wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, or the psychos that were in control before were very happy with how the money machine was running for them, so they didn't need to change anything. Now that some other psychos are taking over, the people that got used to the previous psychos are uneasy because change it not easy, especially rigorous change. But maybe this will make people actually realize that the system was always flawed. The current administra…

How can you even compare the level of psycho-ness of the Biden administration to the Trump administration?

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#382

Post by insane_dreamer » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

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.

the only entity that could _maybe_ rein it in would be Congress, specifically the Senate.

Even SCOTUS, by the time it gets all the way there, the damage would be done and it would take years to rebuild.

A complete clusterfk by design.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#383

Post by slashdev » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 3:20 PM UTC

affinepplan wrote: post #377

slashdev wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I think the point is that’s not power. Not hard power or real power anyway. It’s soft power, it’s influence. But not much more.

I think it is hard power. and also note they had write access, not just read. so if Musk wanted to he could have just straight up deleted all the data. that is real power.

That’s just somebody at the treasury being a moron.

You defined power as soft power and now you want to say actually it’s hard power. It’s not. They can’t give anyone orders and impose consequences for not following them. That’s what hard power is.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#384

Post by yuppii » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 4:24 PM UTC

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #260

dylan604 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They are also tweeting 'findings' to create a narrative. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885964969335808217

Just because you do not like the information surfacing and how they have used the labor of tax payers to support and fund totally ridiculous and/or illegal activities both in US and overseas, does not make these "findings" less important. I am surprised how many people are approaching this in such a partisan way, even in a place like Hacker News.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#385

Post by littlestymaar » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 4:54 PM UTC

leovingi wrote: post #330

littlestymaar wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In democratic countries, civil servants aren't supposed to be changed after each elections, while they have their individual opinions they know their duty and follow the orders that come from the political power (and should they not obey to the order from above, there are disciplinary sanctions that can be leveraged against them). And it's not some theoretical idea, in all Western democracies, every civil servant tha…

>while they have their individual opinions they know their duty and follow the orders that come from the political power Have you forgotten Trump's first presidential term? The resistance [1], the gleeful celebration of the "deep state" fighting back against Trump [2], a US general calling his Chinese counterparts before the 2020 election [3]? Bureaucrats cannot fight against a democratically elected executive, call…

I shouldn't have to mention it, but refusing to listen to illegal orders is obviously part of a civil servant's duty.

In a democracy, a civil servant must respect the law even if it goes against orders. When all you have civil servants who respect their boss's orders even when it goes against the law, you have left the domain of democracy.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#386

Post by dangus » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 7:22 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #339

dangus wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, DOGE is obviously illegal. Trump created a fake department of the government without congressional appropriation of funds.

Not everything in the government needs congressional appropriation of funds.

How do DOGE employees get paid?

If the answer is “they don’t” then they aren’t government employees or contractors and shouldn’t be inside private areas of government buildings and systems.

If the answer is anything else then it’s either a misappropriation of funds or an illegal private pay scheme.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#387

Post by dangus » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 7:23 PM UTC

whatever1 wrote: post #172

dangus wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is “unseeing.” They can be tried for rather obvious crimes and thrown in prison.

They will get a blanket pardon anyway. So in the end we will have to apologize to them.

Easy fix, impeach and convict the president.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#388

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 7:27 PM UTC

theonething wrote: post #376

llamaimperative wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did the left do this to the right? Be specific please.

You're asking when did this happen: "the left dismantling the shadow right" here, when the IRS under Obama discriminated against conservative and Christian groups for applications for tax exempt status > The consent order says the IRS admits it wrongly used "heightened scrutiny and inordinate delays" and demanded unnecessary information as it reviewed applications for tax-exempt status. The order says, "For such trea…

[deleted]

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#389

Post by speakfreely » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 2:47 AM UTC

voxic11 wrote: post #317

hintymad wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation Could you share you reasons. From what I gather, the EO[1] does a few things to avoid potential law suits: - It revised the purpose of an existing agency, USDS. The general purpose is not changed: "Modernizing Federal Technology and Software to Maximize Efficiency and Productivity". This avoids the issue of creating a new agency without the approval from Congress. -…

The USDS wasn't established by Congress, it was established by Obama via Presidential memoranda and OMB budget request.

Pretty amusing that Obama essentially created a SPAC for Trump and Musk to use to dismantle the civil service.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#390

Post by speakfreely » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 2:48 AM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #342

voxic11 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USDS wasn't established by Congress, it was established by Obama via Presidential memoranda and OMB budget request.

Thanks! I knew that Obama created the USDS, but I thought he still needed the support from Congress. Well then, in that case I'm not sure why Trump would rather repurpose the USDS. Maybe it's easier to set up a temporary entity for DOGE that way?

USDS was already kind of set up the way you'd want to set up DOGE if you were Elon. It was designed for talented people from the tech industry to do "temporary tours" in the government.