How exactly do you investigate and reform a system if the system has evolved to avoid its own demise? Lawsuits sure are a way to slow down reform. But, at the same time the privacy of millions is likely being violated. But again, the federal government is by far the biggest violator of the people's rights, privacy or otherwise. Our private data is all over the place and leaked with zero consequence to those in power.
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74 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 12 Feb
I have mixed feelings:
A) On one hand, DOGE outrunning the injunctions and just going in and leeching whatever data they can get is a bit sad. It shows how afraid they are that they're going to be stopped.
B) On the other: the problem here is that private information is available like that in the first place. Why is it not encrypted with HSM back ends and tight access control?
Look at it this way: your $200 coldcard is more secure than most of the $2Bn fed systems. Actually, their systems are often less secure than your printed seed phrase backup without 13th/25th word too, because at least you're keeping that in a safe that Elon won't have the code to without you giving it to him.
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110 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford OP 12 Feb
Yeah... the government does not care one bit about you or your privacy.
IMO none of these agency should exist, most violate the Constitution, and AFAIK they all are in the executive branch so any Prez could do this.
I sum it up like this. Those mad about this just love stealing the people's money to do what they want with it and doing it in darkness. When you shine light the rats scatter.
I'm sure there is gonna be crap that Elon/Trump do not cut that they should but that's to be expected.
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49 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 12 Feb
I don't disagree with that. Stirring the pot is great.
But, and this is a big one: don't hurt the innocent. The moment they download and store the PII/SSNs of innocent people they are severely weakening their privacy and increasing the attack surface to their data.
It all feels extremely Zuck to me. Move fast, break things.
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 12 Feb
Yeah, we aren't comparing two good things. Two bad things.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 12 Feb
Exactly. Its all very non exceptional and the only thing that makes it not boring is all the people that are upset in the media. I must say I do love the popcorn factor. 😂
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46 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 12 Feb
I've always thought this could be an issue. There's no way to know if something is a legitimate expenditure without knowing who the recipients are and knowing who the recipients are might violate privacy guarantees that have been put in place.
From a big picture perspective, the presumption should be that the spending is illegitimate, until demonstrated otherwise: i.e. the burden of proof should be on the state to demonstrate that the spending is beneficial to society.
An approach in-line with that view, would be to suspend everything and only resume activities after they meet some oversight standard (which may involve the recipients waving their privacy protections).
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37 sats \ 4 replies \ @kepford OP 12 Feb
Yeah... the idea that you have any expectation of privacy when you work with a government or an org that is funded by a gov is a joke. Its not right but come on.
I have to say at this point I'm impressed with the strategy of Elon and whoever came up with this approach. If they had tried to use the "approved" approaches we would only be hearing about blue ribbon committees that would give us a report in a couple years.
Musk makes a good point when he says the US is a bureaucracy not a democracy. Neither is good but the first step of improvement is to be honest about where you are... few say stuff like this.
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57 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 12 Feb
I've also been impressed with the approach. I thought they'd get bogged down in the bureaucratic quagmire, and they still might, but so far they've made a bigger splash than I expected.
I don't know as much about program administration, but there are serious protections in place for respondents to federal surveys. There's something like a 5-year prison sentence for revealing something like individual census responses. Those penalties are there to make people more comfortable about disclosing potentially incriminating personal information.
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47 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford OP 12 Feb
To me what is happening now is amazing... not because I think the state is being dismantled but because things are being brought into the light and not ignored. It opens a door to ask a lot of tough questions about government. It also exposes the priorities of these democrats... even more clear for the dense among us.
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48 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 12 Feb
And, it's only been three weeks.
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27 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 12 Feb
Its almost like all presidents do not really care about making cuts. Real cuts. Trump is the first if we are to judge by actions alone. Which is what we should do. They are all pro liars including Trump so that's the best approach IMO.
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