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DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

theatlantic.com

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Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#941

Post by cryptonector »

drowsspa wrote: post #910
cryptonector wrote: post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution vest all executive authority on the president. The president can delegate that authority. That's what all is happening here. Within the executive branch the president has practically total power, hardly if at all possible to constrain by statute, and that's by design in the Constitution. The president needs the Senate's "advice and consent" to hire principal officers, and does not need the Senate's "…

Thanks for the explanation. Like I said, sounds wild that yes, the American Constitution does establish the president as basically a king over the Executive branch. Copying what I typed elsewhere, I guess it's a testament to American democratic cultural history that no coup has occurred in American history when the president has such an absolute authority over the executive branch. Let's hope for the sake of the whol…

Is it not the same pretty much in all systems with unitary heads of state? Prime ministers surely have similar powers, subject only to votes of no confidence by their parliaments. Kings, where they have power, are also like this.

> I guess it's a testament to American democratic cultural history that no coup has occurred in American history

The various assassinations of presidents were kinds of coups, don't you think? Soon we'll find out if the CIA did or did not kill JFK. Suppose the CIA killed JFK -for argument's sake-, surely that would have been a coup, no?

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#942

Post by MoneyMeMoneyNow »

cryptonector wrote: post #871
insane_dreamer wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets assume for a minute that what's going on is a good faith comprehensive audit of these agencies. (It's not, but lets just say it is.) 1) How long do you think it takes to perform a comprehensive audit of an agency in order to accurately determine waste, corruption and fraud. If you've ever audited a large corporation, you know what that takes -- it is not something you whip up in a week or two. 2) Who do you thin…

Presumably Elon and hist staff were planning this and -maybe?- training for this for months, perhaps since before the election.

Haha buddy they were still interviewing people in January.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#943

Post by cryptonector »

28304283409234 wrote: post #697
borgster wrote: post #216

The President is the head of the executive branch. If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too. Why is this hard to accept?

He is not a monarch. The core principles of a well functioning democracy include that there are multiple, balanced powers and that none of the powers can overrule the other too much. It is cumbersome by design, because the other path leads to dictatorships. That was the whole basis of your constitution.

Under U.S. constitutional law -meaning the Constitution itself and the binding judicial precedents and the impeachment precedents (mainly from the failed impeachment of Andrew Johnson)- the president is plenipotent within the executive to do things like:

  - fire principal officers without
    the Senate's advice and consent

  - fire other appointed offices who
    did not require the Senate's
    advice and consent to confirm

  - lay off federal employees in the
    executive branch

  - audit the executive branch's
    agencies

  - set policy for all executive
    branch agencies
etc., as long as it's all within the executive branch.

The president can also abrogate treaties without the Senate's advice and consent.

Most of the above are not explicitly in the Constitution as such, but are understood to be constitutional law either due to SCOTUS decisions, longstanding and unchallenged practice, or the result of the failed impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

Not only that but also most if not all recent presidents going back decades have done some if not all of the above. That includes Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden.

In other words: there is no innovation here, no judicial controversy. This is all standard fare for any new administration. The only difference is the extent of what Trump is doing in his second term compared to any other recent presidency. The sheer number of EOs, the auditing (which basically hasn't been done recently), and the layoffs (which are rare in DC). And yes, he's goring a lot of oxen -more than other presidents in recent memory-, but they all do that, just not eliciting so much outrage from the opposition.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#944

Post by cryptonector »

mrguyorama wrote: post #506
borgster wrote: post #216

The President is the head of the executive branch. If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too. Why is this hard to accept?

If the CEO of my ecommerce company had easy, unmonitored access to all our data, we would fail industry audits and not be allowed to take credit card transactions. Sure, they have access if they really need it, but it's logged and monitored, and if you use it too much there will be questions. It's a joke that any of you assholes are defending this. This does not pass any sniff test. Stop making excuses.

The president has absolute authority to access to all secrets within the executive branch, and has absolute declassification authority, both statutorily and presumptively constitutionally as a result of a) being the president, b) being able to nominate his cabinet, c) being able to issue executive orders to his executive branch officers and acting officers.

The president therefore has the authority to access every last secret and every last system within the executive branch. No statute can limit this power. The president also has the authority to delegate (to some extent; only the president can issue EOs, but presumably his officers can recommend EOs to him) these powers to his or her officers.

The titular of the U.S. Digital Service (DOGE) is statutorily not subject to Senate confirmation, though considering how Trump's controversial nominees have sailed through Senate confirmation it's easy to suppose that Musk would also likely be confirmed to head the USDS were it an appointment subject to Senate confirmation. Since the president can appoint someone like Elon Musk to head the USDS, and since the president can delegate his clearance and declassification authority to someone like Elon Musk, his doing so does very much "pass [the] sniff test".

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#945

Post by cryptonector »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #525
borgster wrote: post #216

The President is the head of the executive branch. If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too. Why is this hard to accept?

Most people in the US don't know that there are three branches of government, or if they do, they don't know WHY there are three, and even if they know that, they don't know what each branch's purpose is. This is absolutely the job of the executive branch. Perhaps DOGE should have been created by an act of congress, but in reality that's just a formality because the Republicans control Congress right now.

DOGE was created by an act of Congress after Obama first created it by an executive order. Its formal name is United States Digital Service.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#946

Post by cryptonector »

TomK32 wrote: post #594
phendrenad2 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people in the US don't know that there are three branches of government, or if they do, they don't know WHY there are three, and even if they know that, they don't know what each branch's purpose is. This is absolutely the job of the executive branch. Perhaps DOGE should have been created by an act of congress, but in reality that's just a formality because the Republicans control Congress right now.

It is only the job of the executive because Congress told them so via Acts of Congress. Looking at e.g. the firings of the inspector generals, Congress has put very clear language into its laws on why and when those inspector generals can be removed by their post, yet Trump and his cronies ignored this. It should not be a formality because while it is true that the Republicans have a slight majority in Congress, the…

The president can fire any executive branch officer at any time for any reason regardless of what any statute says about it.

There are two precedents for this to my knowledge, though there may be more:

  - the failed impeachment of
    Andrew Johnson established
    that the president can fire
    principal officers without
    the Senate's advice and
    consent

  - Spicer vs. Biden, which
    established that the president
    can fire officers with fixed
    terms
> self-proclaimed King

He was clearly trolling. Grammatically that tweet does not parse like himself calling himself a king. For all you know he loves the British king, or some other king, or maybe he was referring to Jesus. But he got what he wanted from that quip: it got reported, along with credit for ending congestion pricing in Manhattan. Why the media still falls for that, I don't know.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#947

Post by cryptonector »

moduspol wrote: post #577
phendrenad2 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people in the US don't know that there are three branches of government, or if they do, they don't know WHY there are three, and even if they know that, they don't know what each branch's purpose is. This is absolutely the job of the executive branch. Perhaps DOGE should have been created by an act of congress, but in reality that's just a formality because the Republicans control Congress right now.

Trump renamed USDS to DOGE via executive order. It's true that it's not an agency, but it was created during the Obama administration. I'm not sure it'd be better as an agency because there are strict rules and hierarchies around agencies. The way DOGE is operating right now, seemingly, is: - Agency directors are directed by executive order to work with DOGE and give them access to what they need - DOGE team members…

Correct. It also sidesteps all questions of legality.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#948

Post by cryptonector »

meijer wrote: post #583
borgster wrote: post #216

The President is the head of the executive branch. If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too. Why is this hard to accept?

Ultimately it's about trust. And why would you trust Trump or Musk?

It's about whether the president can legally do this.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#949

Post by cryptonector »

thechao wrote: post #861
nprateem wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty obvious isn't it? Trump stacked the Supreme Court the first time round which turned out to be the best thing he ever did. Now they'll control payments to defund opponents as well as sacking anyone who doesn't support them to gain total loyalty. In fact, the way they're doing this is clever: Sack and then make former colleagues compete to be rehired. That way they'll feel extra grateful to have a job and w…

The plans were laid down with "Red Map" in 2010, and reinforced in 2020: this is control of the GOP "at the base" via gerrymandering and primary control. It means that the individual representatives no longer control their own districts since a central authority (Trump) can easily out primary the individual representatives if they don't toe-the-line. One of the non-obvious impacts of the 2010 gerrymander we learned w…

> gerrymandering

> this means you can use the district-level gerrymander to control Senate-level seats. This has bought the GOP a ~+3-+8 bias in the Senate.

What?? No, you cannot gerrymander States (and therefore Senate seats). You can only gerrymander districts smaller than States. States with one House seat can't gerrymander that House seat either. State legislature seats can be gerrymandered. U.S. House seats in States with more than one House seat can also be gerrymandered. (EDIT: Well, I suppose if Oregon counties are allowed to move into Idaho then that would be a gerrymandering of States, but this is a very very rare event.)

The GOP might have a bias in the Senate, but that would be due to small-population States having more oomph in the Senate than large-population States. Though in 2024 the Electoral College was neutral in terms of partisan bias, which implies at most a small bias in the Senate for one or the other party.

As for gerrymandering of U.S. House districts, that has been going on since the very beginning, and even since before, since Colonial legislatures did it, and the English parliament did it before that. In fact, part of the reason for the Democrats' 62 year dominance of the U.S. House from 1933 to 1995 was gerrymandering.

But as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor explained in one of her decisions, gerrymandering is self-limiting because the party in power (in the legislature) can only optimize for seat safety (thus reducing their majority in their House delegation) or for number of seats (thus rendering some if not many of those seats not-very-safe). Since that decision we've had numerous wave elections in the House, including numerous changes in party in control of the House: 1994, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2018. Arguably in today's day and age gerrymandering doesn't count for all that much compared to the heyday of the Democratic party between 1933 and 1995.

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