Attributing a NRO mission patch to the Obama Administration is quite a bit of a stretch. There is a long tradition of mission patches for all sorts of things in the military and they are generally not dictated from the top down.
joke's on you, as the Wikipedia article states it's an engineering in-joke. Of course, someone still had to pick it up and someone else had to approve it, but the idea for it still came from the bottom.
The ODNI gave a more mundane explanation for the patch design in an internal magazine, stating that it originated from an engineering in-joke regarding a piece of cabling called an "octopus harness" that caused problems during testing for the satellite, leading the engineering team to joke that "the octopus harness had taken over the world."
Your bias is showing by blaming this on Obama, when he would not have any input or even knew about that patch being created. He had far more serious things to worry about than creating a patch. I'm not sure why you would think POTUS is even in the loop on creating patches.
To be fair, they blamed it on the administration. DNI is the administration.
But like, if you're DNI, of course you're going to announce a patch like this. I can't imagine being in that role without a part of you enjoying trolling the conspiracy theorists and other humourless types.
> Your bias is showing by giving the DNI the benefit of the doubt
Your taking the joke seriously is the entire joke. Sort of like people getting into conniptions over the name DOGE. That's the point of naming it DOGE: to prompt that reaction.
They always say the next generation, being more 'digitally native', will be amazing with computers. That hasn't been my experience. But if what you say is true, they are going to be great at counterintelligence.
Who exactly is going to be part of DOGE is a particularly thorny issue, because there are technically two DOGEs. One is the permanent organization, the revamped USDS—now the US DOGE Service. The other is a temporary organization, with a termination date of July 4, 2026. Creating this organization means the temporary DOGE can operate under a special set of rules. It can sequester employees from other parts of the government and can accept people who want to work for the government as volunteers. Temporary organizations can also hire what are known as special government employees—experts in a given field who can bypass the rigors of the regular federal hiring processes. They’re also not subject to the same transparency requirements as other government employees.
> They’re also not subject to the same transparency requirements as other government employees.
Before anyone blames the current president without context, remember that the TSA is one of multiple agencies also operating under these provisions by having a permanent pseudo-temporary organization status. This is also why the TSA gets away with turnover and hiring standards that would be forbidden in other branches.
> What happens to all its engineers and developers?
The clever ones will leave. The naïve ones will become legal fodder for the rest of their careers. The lucky ones will make an impression on a billionaire and become rich from the proximity.
On the whole, the country may benefit from having young, talented and naïve engineers engaging in tasks at the boundaries of the legally permissable. It works for VC, after all. (The difference being you don't get personally bankrupted with legal bills in startups if you're wrong.)
> You think any of the H1B engineers at Twitter Elon did a pizza party photo op with are going to become millionaires?
I'm not calling anyone out. Just that a consistently-winning strategy in any economic or political system is finding the biggest pot of money and sitting next to it.
> The engineers and developers just got the green light for every good idea they can come up with.
Where in the world is this idea coming from? What part of their new mandate makes you think engineers and developers suddenly have a blank check to do whatever they want?
I’m still baffled that MORE people voted for this sad, sick, small excuse of a man as president this time around. Very disappointed in my fellow Americans who are either too hateful, willfully ignorant, or ambivalent to let this happen to all of us. Shameful.
This is the endgame of the “lesser of two evils” game (for some people), sadly. I don’t think anyone on the planet can claim the democrats didn’t drop the ball totally and at every possible juncture.
The sibling dead comment is right: we need ranked choice voting. I doubt it will ever happen though because the two party system (really a one party corporate interest system) would be massively disadvantaged as a result and will fight tooth and nail to prevent it from getting implemented.
It's also entirely possible that the flagging is being done by a small minority. I don't know precisely how flagging on HN works as I've never done it, but I can't imagine it's terribly difficult to game and there's a definite motive.
I wouldn't be shocked to find out it was all one account, really.
IME, Trump support on HN probably follows the general population: 50/50 among folks who care to vote, who knows among folks who have far less to lose.
My feeling is that people here generally assume that the bad things will always happen to other folks, so that these articles appear as divisive and irrelevant.
It's one of the great Gell-Mann amneisia-style ironies that folks here are generally very understanding of why online privacy doesn't work when folks adopt "privacy doesn't matter if you have nothing to hide"-
these same folks immediately fail to understand that if the government can oppress trans/queer/bipoc/native/women/etc folks or put down labor, then the same group will exert its power over them. It doesn't help that these same folks probably don't even see state oppression as state oppression, as it just shows up as "what normal, Real humans do".
I suppose position might not be incorrect for folks who are sufficiently privileged and very bought into the idea that they live at the historically necessary end of history.
After all, their ancestors committed pretty horrible crimes for which they have never felt one bit of blow back. So they might simply be right that the boot will always be on other folks faces, forever.
I doubt it (I don't think that the boot on their faces is a thing that they can see at such close proxemity), but they also think I'm an idiot and I'm not in an impartial place where I could judge which of us is right.
What do you expect when the ideal Silicon Valley corporation is structured as a dictatorship? People have been conditioned by the industry to accept authoritarianism in their lives and work, and this is the end result.
Of course who is watching things is important, as a bunch of independent auditors just got fired: "Trump uses mass firing to remove [17] inspectors general at a series of agencies":
They have lots of confidential information. Some examples:
* Many agencies - for example, the IRS, Medicare, Social Security, FEMA, agencies that provide loans, or any other service - have lots of information on individual citizens.
* Many agencies have information or make decisions that would distort markets if leaked - it's release must be carefully managed - such as the departments of Treasury, Labor, Commerce; or the Federal Reserve.
* The Department of Justice has lots of information pertaining to lawsuits and investigations that must be kept secret.
Yet another example that I've dealt with from the outside: as part of regulated community, I must submit some trade secrets to the government for regulatory purposes. Those trade secrets are legally required to be kept secret by the government from disclosure. This regime allows the government to inspect things that involve trade secrets, and me from those trade secrets being disclosed to competitors.
Aside from the other reasons already mentioned, fully public agencies would be astoundingly inefficient and ineffective. Government agencies are already subject to an intense amount of scrutiny (some sincere, some extremely bad faith) and if every email, bulletin, roadmap, etc. were public by default agencies would become even more catatonic than they already are. There needs to be a space for reasonable disagreement and problem-solving without the possibility of immense personal, professional, and political consequences.
It could also make accountability harder because it would encourage avoiding paper trails whenever possible, even when employees believe they are acting within the law.
Is FOIA the right amount of openness? I don't know, probably not, but it's definitely better than public-by-default.
I've thought about that. I suspect, like many things in the new very open Internet world, people would become accusomted to everything being out in the open, and no longer respond strongly to every little issue.
I think it would look a lot like LibsOfTiktok. The sheer volume of information flowing would allow creating any polarizing narrative you want for an audience already primed to hear it and do something about it.
Because the social security numbers, health records, or geographic details of people who have interacted with the government shouldn’t be open to the general public, for one.
When people think classified, they think UFOs and Assassinations. But something as simple as which agencies and agents are investigating which issues, companies and people, can be unclassified, effectively giving private interests opportunities to shut things down.
You have to pass a "public trust" clearance for alot of Gov departments. They vary in intensity. For example, GSA and USDA are both pretty quick and easy. Dept of Ed, treasury, and IRS are way more in-depth.
I have seen many FOIA requests get answered with heavy redactions and otherwise partial answers. For "public by default," lots of arms of the government don't see transparency as something they are supposed to do, and more as an imposition.
Other parts of the government are good at responding to FOIA requests, but it's generally inversely proportional to the value of the information.
I used to like Musk quite a bit. Now that he has shown us his true stripes with his Nazi salute, I find the man abhorrent. He is a disgrace and an embarrassment. He should probably be deported or jailed, he does not belong in a free and just country. I doubt very few of us would be tolerant of Nazis and Fascists, and indeed we should be completely intolerant of Musk.
Subtitle: A former USDS employee called the repurposing of the Digital Service into DOGE an “A+ bureaucratic jiujitsu move.” It will give Musk and his associates access to unclassified data in every government agency.
Later it says:
The Service’s mandate allows it the wide-ranging ability to enter any government agency and access its software or technical systems with the goal of helping to streamline or reform existing systems.
That doesn't necessarily mean you can access data, though the first quote says they can.
"Reform" means identifying and eliminating political enemies. No need for the loyalty pledges Project 2025 outlines, just use AI on all employees messages, emails, tax returns etc they will have access to.
They demand access. Some departments give it up. Others say no. It goes over to the inspector general of the department, who may end up consulting with the Attorney General, who will surely approve. If that doesn't work, they go to the courts to resolve.
That's not supposed to ever happen, but it's the rules for when one department of the government is fighting another.
So it's not as easy as the article makes it sound. But it's either a significant blow to the Deep State or a pogrom of the civil service, depending on your point of view.
Having actually talked to people who have filed FoIA requests, it’s actually near impossible to get things from the government if they don’t want to share it with you.
First the requests have to be narrow and specific. You can’t just be “give me everything you have on xyz”. Then they can very much drag on the process forever by going back and forth on how narrow the specifics need to be. Then there’s the issue of a wide range of documents that are not covered under FoIA. And then finally even if you manage to request the documents correctly and they are covered under FoIA, sometimes they simply don’t have them. This is amazingly common when FoIA activists try to get budget and spending related documents.
They can also simply ignore your request, and force you to take them to court in order to get a response. There's little downside in doing this, especially against small requestors. This happens with some regularity, and is known as "constructive denial".
In a sense, that is much of what computers are - ease of access. What's the difference between millions of of paper documents in a warehouse, and a live database with the same information instantly accessible, processable, etc.? I suppose it's just 'ease of access'.
But it is all the difference in the world. One does not compare to the other. FOIA requests - which take paperwork, must specify the thing requested, and sometimes years to resolve - don't compare to live access to the databases and applications and personnel.
There's a lot that you can't get via FOIA. You can't just go on a fishing expedition. A lot of stuff is unclassified but personal, and restricted.
This potentially gives you access to everything. Such access is supposed to be about the system itself and not the data within (just like your sysadmin can theoretically look at your files but promised not to). But hey, who's watching, and to whom would they complain?
> The Service’s mandate allows it the wide-ranging ability to enter any government agency and access its software or technical systems with the goal of helping to streamline or reform existing systems.
That’s actually cool they have that ability. I’ve always been a huge fan of USDS, I think they just got massively supercharged, and look forward to watching them achieve this mission.
When people succeed over a number of decades in widely varying domains, you should presume them to be quite intelligent, no matter how much you may dislike them.
Where has he succeeded, other than enriching and empowering himself? His money seems to come from his parents and then corruption and fraud, though I don't at all know the numbers. How has Trump contributed to society?
Musk, at least, has provided value to society - which does not at all outweigh his spread of violence, hatred, criminality, and taking away freedom.
Why is Musk banned by the constitution of the US from becoming the president of the US, and why does similar logic not also apply to being in charge of major government processes? Especially given that the same administration that is happy with Musk doing all this is unhappy with migrants (a category that includes Musk) and even their children born in the US?
Even at their best, both Musk and Trump are lax with the rules.
> Why is Musk banned by the constitution of the US from becoming the president of the US, and why does similar logic not also apply to being in charge of major government processes?
Are you saying that nobody born outside the US can be "in charge of major government processes"? Why not? Are people born in the US inherently more capable or loyal? Should our nation of 'all are created equal' give them more rights?
I'm saying Musk can't be president and asking why the logic that made that ban happen doesn't also apply to DOGE.
This is not a judgement call, it's noticing hypocrisy (and broader incoherence) and suggesting why neither Musk nor Trump can fully trust the other.
(The same rule would also preclude me from becoming president of the US, but as I live several time zones away from the nearest part of the US, and have no desire to change this, and don't want that kind of job, it matters less).
The native-born qualification for the presidency is in the Constitution. The US Consitution is a spare document that doesn't even mention agencies, much less agency directors. It doesn't even name major government departments or secretaries, such as Defense, Justice, etc.
Congress could pass a law about it, but I'm not sure why they would. I'm not sure what the authors of the Constitution were thinking, but that was a very different situation. For example, the US had just separated from the UK; perhaps, having just rid themselves of a British king, the authors didn't want someone born in the UK as president.
Because I'm not talking about left or right. I'm talking about corruption. He and his people are corrupt. You can be a republican who voted for him, and now realize he lied.
He promised these people the world only to get in day one and say "sucks to suck".
Trump promised to create a Department of Government Efficiency and put Musk on the task and then he did it. Digital services are a huge part of government efficiency. What's the controversy?
> He and his people are corrupt. You can be a republican who voted for him, and now realize he lied.
Why do you think GOP voters didn't realize Trump was corrupt? Obviously they knew and voted for him anyway. The question is, why? Why did they abandon all common sense and good sense?
> Biden's pardoning of his son and pre-emptive pardoning of his family sets a very low bar for corruption.
I'm sure you know the reasons that's not comparable - meaning, I'm not going to make some pedantic argument about it. One bad event doesn't define everything. How many bad events are connected to Trump? Everyone who is not a saint is equally a sinner? - That's very egalitarian of you, but maybe too much so in this case. :)
I agree it was corrupt and it made me angry, though he did have an argument: He said Trump would target his son corruptly.
That's a real possibility: Trump has a long track record of such things and of a desire to do more; he openly said he would do it if elected. I think the GOP did corruptly attack Hunter Biden because he is the President's son - IMHO it's attacking family members of enemies; Hunter seems to have broken laws, but many do without the massive investigations by Congress and DoJ, news coverage, etc. And now Trump has directed the attorney general to investigate the Biden administration.
Anyone can say it but Biden has lots of evidence, as outlined, which others don't have. I'm talking more about protecting Hunter against future prosecution and persecution, not cutting his sentence short (though I wonder what comparable convictions get).
USDS was one of the few orgs that was clearly doing import technology work out in the open [1] inside the federal government. Their mission was to embed into other federal agencies to provide support for making tech decisions. They published design standards, like USWDS [2] (along with 18F), and playbooks for helping orgs that had outdated views on tech. You'd often get a team with a mix of four engineers/designers, typically people that had come out of the SF tech startup world, to help fix outdated practices. Now instead of four engineers/designers you'll get 1 engineer, 1 lawyer, 1 HR professional, and a "DOGE team lead" [3].
As someone that has done work in this space, this seems objectively worse than what was going on for the past 10 or so years. Honestly, it's probably a return to the dysfunctional, lawyer run way of doing tech consulting where their sole purpose is to structure contracts to extract 100s of millions of dollars from the federal government while plopping down a pile of "enterprise" java code that doesn't work.
> Honestly, it's probably a return to the dysfunctional, lawyer run way of doing tech consulting where their sole purpose is to structure contracts ...
The OP think's it's designed to identify and weed out people who may be disloyal to Trump.
Trump supporters are going to go through a few things these next four years. I wonder if you will tire of carrying water for him or will do it to the end, even when he refuses to step down and demands a mandate for life.
Sure I'll happily do that when he peacefully steps down, but that's not what he did last time, and that's not what he has said he plans to do. He openly admires dictators.
Let's wait and see if he does what he thinks he should (try to remain president for life). I hope you wouldn't support it if he did try to extend his term, would you? I'm genuinely interested to hear you answer that - where is the line for you that he should not cross?
What he had to say about the Chinese dictator Xi:
"He's now president for life, president for life. And he's great," Trump said, "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday," Trump said to cheers and applause from supporters.
And oh look, I didn't even know about this attempt by a sycophant in congress to give him what he wants 3 days into his second term:
And when they announced that third term amendment people said "Aha, well we can run Obama against him!" -- which might be a win, if they hadn't written the constitutional amendment to literally only apply to one living president: Trump.
Why should we care if users in r/conservatives take it seriously? Do you honestly believe that trump cares at all what the constituents think at this point?
He didn’t stay in months. He left and Biden took over. The same date that Biden left - Jan 20th. There was no coup attempt because the Democrats stole the election last time. Just like they lied about Biden’s mental health until it was too bad to hide anymore.
Good lord, this is just painful to see here. Not a single shred of credible evidence was produced to indicate that Biden stole the election. Pro tip, when a person who lies with every breath he takes tells you to believe something, don’t.
I solemnly hope that you are trolling, but I fear you’re not.
Plenty of states like Georgia and Pennsylvania did not follow their election laws and stole the election. It was proven. Those states fixed their laws (and there is still some work to go). Tried to do similar things again and it was stopped in the court. Do you not remember?
Not sure how you don’t see this
He won by popular and electoral college vote. Overwhelmingly. The people of the US wanted this and are fed up.
Why do so many liberals overlook the vast amounts of evidence that a few bad actors in the crowd, some of which may have been FBI agents, were the main antagonists.
And that the members of the crowd that entered the capitol were lead inside by police that moved the barriers out of the way and waved them in.
AND that the mayor of DC knew ahead of time that there would be a massive demonstration and didn't bother to beef up the police on site. They were actually understaffed that day.
Truly infuriating to see opinions like this in a space of educated, curious people. He clearly tried every avenue possible to stay in office. Luckily he failed. Unluckily we let him right back in, to the detriment of nearly every person in this country.
You assume that this isn't reasonable or logical, apparently because it may imply bad things about Trump. There's nothing about Trump (or really anyone) that makes bad things unreasonable or illogical.
The article frames this like a bad thing but it seems perfectly reasonable. The DOGE is, effectively, a group of auditors. Of course they're going to need to have access to information on the organizations they are auditing. Honestly this comes across as the author reaching for an excuse to make it sound bad because they don't like Trump and/or the DOGE.
> Of course they're going to need to have access to information on the organizations they are auditing.
And Criminal conspiracy is just making plans with friends. The details matter and the details are that DOGE is structured for maximum access/capability and minimum oversight from congress, other agencies, and the public.
Not realizing the implications of an oligarch who bought his way into the federal government with apparent conflicts of interest is equally reaching and dogmatic. This article asks the right questions. We should be concerned about this and keep a watchful eye on it.
A meme coin representing the entirety of our government’s digital presence? Feels very unserious.
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