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DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
231–240 of 1001 posts
Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very few countries have as strong executive branch as the USA.
We call those ones “monarchies” or “dictatorships”.
You call the first and one of the most successful democracies in the world a monarchy/dictatorship? The American Executive branch is given broad powers since the very beginning and considering the success there might be something to it.
In contrast the Europeans have descended into petty mass wars and dictatorial regimes multiple times, and each time America has come to save Europe through that very Executive branch.
A bit thankless don't you think?
Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Except that they, an unelected private group, have already attempted to get all private and confidential citizen data from the US treasury, and have been blocked by the courts as it is illegal. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/08/judge-tem... They have tried to get data of all payments to US citizens including pensions, 401k, benefits and allowances etc. All foreign aid and diplomacy payments are inclu…
Doge isn’t private. They are government employees. Also USAID was unelected. Nobody working at the IRS was elected either.
Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the advantages of this in a digital age are vastly overblown. If an extremist government comes to power they won't care and they can just do the SQL join. Let it go to court, the extremist government will decide anyway so the outcome is already predetermined. Compare this to a physical storage of paper documents that need to be SQL joined, the effort required is several magnitudes more. What it is good for is…
I would not count on those separate databases using a common key. Joining could be quite a pain.
Regardless of the actual implementation, do you agree that it's likely much easier to match data when you have it in an organized digital form than an organized physical form?
Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
#235Just imagine one second if Poutine really have a file on Trump and this is the ultimate holdup to give Russia access to all US systems...
Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
#236The moment they had physical access to the system, it was necessary to assume this. It's called an 'evil maid' attack, and of all communities this one should have been blowing the whistle. Loudly, repeatedly, and in open defiance of people who argue that this is a storm in a teacup, a non issue, just another MOT, etc. Especially when you look at the background of the Doge team - 'ex' hackers, 'security specialists',…
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The issue lies in a number of areas:
1. Politicians are watching their favorite pork barreling disappear day by day
2. Since Trump was elected President the waste identified is going to be what Trump thinks is waste
3. The job of the Democrats is to get elected, and you don’t get elected by sitting by as your opponent keeps doing things many voters are supporting, you try and stop it
Because government waste is high on the list of priorities of many voters and DOGE seems to have only improved Trump’s approval rating, the Democrats can’t come out and say “stop cutting government waste”!
So instead they try to politically attack DOGE by saying many of them are young (so are the soldiers we send overseas to fight wars), they are unelected (so are all government workers), they aren’t allowed to do this (to be determined by courts) and they are cutting the wrong things (the voters will decide this in the end).
So if you like what DOGE is doing, sit back and buckle up because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
#237I find it wild that apparently there is no law onto which government workers can cling to refuse these requests. Is it all just based on conventions, goodwill and culture?
Why do you want them to refuse audit requests? There is no upside to hiding egregious government waste other than paying politicians via kickbacks more than what is legally mandated.
'Audit' is not something where you turn in the keys to your locker unconditionally to some random stranger who just walks in making demands. Audits are based on pre-determined and documented criteria, with the participation and supervision of responsible in-house officials. They just check if everything is in order. Auditors are rarely given unsupervised access to any data - especially to sensitive information. Meanwhile, the auditors themselves have to be held to a high level of integrity - elimination of conflicts of interest being the most important. This is a sham audit if it can be considered to be one at all.
Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I can't believe people believe that it's actually an "audit". Both Trump. and Elon are famous liars. The reality is they think they found a loophole to destroy the government without having to pass any laws by fiting as many people as they can and stopping payments randomly. It's all illegal and evil.
Have you read Article II?
Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which law are referring to? I work in such an agency and I’ve never heard of such a thing
Dunno about Germany but in Belgium there is Crossroads Bank for Social Security which effectively controls the flow of information between various social security and public health organizations: https://www.ksz-bcss.fgov.be/ In its current form, it's a set of SOAP or REST APIs that your organization gets access to after completing paperwork about your needs. It was established by a 1990 law [1]. There is also a simi…
Culture is more important on whether or not a country can slide into a dictatorship.
Americans are ultimately conditioned to accept leadership. Belgians have never and never will agree on anything.