I am not sure how it's possible to defend the kind of stuff DOGE is doing anymore. Even the veneer of looking for efficiency is gone. There have only been claims of 'fraud' with no real evidence backing up the claimed scale of fraud.
At this point it simply looks like DOGE is yet another attempt to use a popular trope (Govt fraud and waste) to push through changes specifically designed to give unchecked power to one individual.
This much concentrated, unchecked power opens up vast opportunities for fraud and corruption and there are pretty much no instances in history where it turned out be to a good thing in retrospect.
Also, very surprised this story made it to the front page. Typically, stuff like this gets flagged off the front page within minutes.
GolDDranks 6 minutes ago [-]
> Typically, stuff like this gets flagged off the front page within minutes.
Why would that be, because it's too "political" for tech news? Or are there actual DOGE sympathies within the HN population?
bedane 59 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
exe34 37 minutes ago [-]
most of this stuff is getting flagged within minutes.
AIPedant 4 hours ago [-]
Even by the standards of this administration...... yikes:
Meanwhile, his attempts to raise concerns internally within the NLRB preceded someone "physically taping a threatening note" to his door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone, according to a cover letter attached to his disclosure filed by his attorney, Andrew Bakaj of the nonprofit Whistleblower Aid.
9283409232 3 hours ago [-]
This is exactly what I expect from this administration. Mob tactics. Take the silver or get the lead.
404mm 2 hours ago [-]
I’d not want to be a whistleblower during this presidency. Whistleblowers tend to have really bad luck crossing the street on a good day.
Der_Einzige 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
CaptWillard 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
rfrey 2 hours ago [-]
What does this mean? You sound pleased the administration is doing things like this.
CaptWillard 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Zamaamiro 2 hours ago [-]
The gaslighting is you calling the report that this whistleblower was threatened “fan fiction”.
shadowgovt 2 hours ago [-]
You should be.
But you're out of patience with the wrong sources.
Zamaamiro 2 hours ago [-]
What kind of response is this?
pc86 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Zamaamiro 2 hours ago [-]
Cyber criminals is factual. This is who Elon staffed DOGE with.
This has been discussed ad nauseum, yes lots of cybersecurity experts were black hat hackers at one point. It's not a particularly interesting point and I'm pretty sure if a different President of a different party hired a cybersecurity expert who had unsavory links in his past these comments would all be a mirror image of each other.
This partisan talking point isn't just boring it's revisionist history. USDS is an Obama creation. At one point Obama had then-VP Biden in charge of government efficiency efforts utilizing USDS to do it: literally the DOGE playbook with a different name, except the person in charge now actively wants to have fewer federal employees. That's the only difference I see so far.
zzrrt 2 minutes ago [-]
> yes lots of cybersecurity experts were black hat hackers at one point
It makes some sense to hire a former blackhat to secure your computers, with appropriate supervision. It's a lot less reasonable to hire a former blackhat to get into your own computer and treasury systems to run audits. I could almost buy an argument like "If you have a legal right to get in but the door is locked, you hire a locksmith to crack the lock. So they needed hackers to take control of the systems away from obstructionists." But you would then send the locksmith home, not have them root through all the records in the building and decide who to fire.
> At one point Obama had then-VP Biden in charge of government efficiency efforts utilizing USDS to do it: literally the DOGE playbook with a different name, except the person in charge now actively wants to have fewer federal employees.
Could you provide more information on Biden's nominal assignment, and what exactly he was supposed to make more efficient? I couldn't find it by Googling, as everything is about DOGE now.
> It provides consultation services to federal agencies on information technology. The agency's 2014 mandate was to improve and simplify digital service, and to improve federal websites.[7][8][9] The mission of the agency is to "deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design."
I could agree that these could be termed "efficiency", but clearly they are very different from the goals of DOGE. USDS had a 2016 value statement that included "Hire and empower great people." So yeah, they didn't reduce the government headcount, as it wasn't their goal and that's not the only way to deliver "efficiency" or government improvement.
The Obama origins are a historical footnote and possibly done this way by Trump for legal expediency reasons. But USDS and DOGE have basically nothing else in common. Most of the USDS staff were fired, their mission statement is replaced. You're holding USDS accountable to DOGE's goals, when USDS didn't share those goals. In 2024 USDS reported "$285 million in projected estimated savings over five years in infrastructure expenses for the Social Security Administration" according to Wikipedia, so it's not like they were allergic to saving money, they just didn't do it by axing the bureaucracy.
it’s pretty clear that doge isn’t targeting things for efficiency but for anything deemed as ideologically incorrect. also the whole bit about how they’re ignoring congressional mandates on how money should be spent. comparing them to prior administration’s attempts at efficiency is either willful whataboutism or boneheaded naive
pc86 57 minutes ago [-]
I don't think this is whataboutism because I'm not saying "what about this unrelated thing that the last guy did?" I'm saying "what about the fact that the last guy said he was doing the exact same thing?" It seemed fine then, why isn't it fine now?
Zamaamiro 29 minutes ago [-]
Prior administration USDS wasn't stealing sensitive NLRB data or sending threatening notes to would-be whistleblowers in the process.
etchalon 1 hours ago [-]
"Nobel invented dynamite. I don't see any difference between him and the guy using it to blow up children."
zzrrt 2 hours ago [-]
> But it's certainly telling that only one of these off topic comments actually got flagged.
Well, right now, the flagged one was "Oh, you guys are adorable.", which didn't try to make a substantive argument or convey information. At least the Cheeto one did. "Adorable" is the least-civil and least-useful comment, so it's not only ideology that explains why it got flagged.
pc86 1 hours ago [-]
I don't think an off-topic comment about Roger Stone and a 15-year old ad hominem meets the bar of constructive HN discourse but we can agree to disagree. I've seen plenty of constructive, right-leaning comments downvoted and flagged while unconstructive partisan pablum from the other side sits there without even being greyed out.
I'd love it if partisan comments regardless of affiliation were more aggressively pruned and the accounts behind them more aggressively moderated, but what we have currently is... not that.
CaptWillard 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
potato3732842 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
AIPedant 2 hours ago [-]
The reason you are being downvoted to smithereens is that Bryan Malinowski was credibly accused of serious crimes (arms trafficking) wheres Daniel Berulis is accused of reporting serious crimes. You're making a preposterous and immoral false equivalence.
pc86 1 hours ago [-]
You can't seriously be defending the treatment of Malinowski. The agents did not wear body cameras in direct violation of ATF policy. They conducted an early-morning no-knock raid for a search warrant when they knew Malinowski would be there (having cancelled an earlier one because he wasn't home). This wasn't an arrest warrant, it was a search warrant. They covered up the doorbell camera so if he had checked it he wouldn't see the half-dozen police vehicles outside.
They could have done the exact same thing in the middle of the day when nobody was home and everybody would be alive today.
They could have waited until daylight and knocked on the door with their warrant and walked right in.
They could have worn body cameras as ATF policy and common sense demands.
"Arms trafficking" is a funny way to say "buying guns legally and reselling them at gun shows" but let's say every single thing said about him is 100% true. If you think someone is a gun runner why wouldn't you take their house when they're not home to get all the evidence without having to worry about what they're doing? Why wouldn't you arrest him at the airport, where he almost certainly isn't armed, and police presence won't raise any alarms?
AIPedant 50 minutes ago [-]
No, I'm not defending it, but this is a ridiculous false equivalence to compare a botched execution of a legally valid search warrant to lawlessly intimidating a whistleblower. (You're also not stating the facts, he clearly bought the guns illegally since he filled out forms promising he wasn't going to resell them.)
pc86 34 minutes ago [-]
Nobody, not even the ATF, is claiming he bought the guns illegally. They're claiming he was illegally "engaged in the business of" dealing weapons because he didn't have an federal firearms license. Prior to 2022 he wouldn't even be on the ATF's radar but "with the principal objective of livelihood and profit" was amended to remove "livelihood."
This is the form you fill out when you purchase a gun[0]. Please let me know where on this form you "promise not to resell" a firearm you purchase.
Straw purchases are illegal. Reselling firearms is not.
Question 8 on the form, “check if any part of this transaction is to facilitate a private party transfer,” is what he lied about. I phrased it loosely.
mikeyouse 1 hours ago [-]
> They conducted an early-morning no-knock raid for a search warrant when they knew Malinowski would be there (having cancelled an earlier one because he wasn't home)
Among many other points that are wrong - everyone involved agrees there was plenty of knocking.
> They could have waited until daylight and knocked on the door with their warrant and walked right in.
Search warrants almost always begin at 6am - and when weapons are involved, they almost always execute them soon after.
pc86 52 minutes ago [-]
You are correct - and I was wrong - that it wasn't a no-knock raid. Malinowski's widow said they heard the knocking but no announcements that they were law enforcement. 28 seconds later their door was knocked in with a battering ram. That anyone announced they were law enforcement is disputed; we'd know what really happened but for want of a single body cam (which IMO makes it much more likely there was no announcement whatsoever).
> Search warrants almost always begin at 6am - and when weapons are involved, they almost always execute them soon after.
I'm not making any comment on whether or not this itself is standard practice, but it seems pretty obvious to me that if this raid was conducted 4 hours later Malinowski would be alive today.
mikeyouse 43 minutes ago [-]
Yeah the ATF is a shit show of an agency with a strong history of fucking up in violent and unconstitutional ways - but unfortunately, their search warrant execution and 'raids' are completely standard operating procedure for US police.
It likely could've been resolved if they'd just sent him a letter asking to meet him at the Federal Building but who wants to be a desk jockey when you can play dress up like GI Joe?
pc86 32 minutes ago [-]
Nobody gets promoted by making a phone call and telling their boss that nothing is actually in violation of law.
But kick a door down in your sparkling clean body armor and perp walk some guy who makes a quarter million dollars a year out of his mansion and you're well on your way.
2 hours ago [-]
9283409232 3 hours ago [-]
DOGE aren't federal agents. They are cyber criminals doing Elon's bidding.
fooList 1 hours ago [-]
I think Trump’s gonna whack Elon. It’s all too obvious for those of us who have been paying attention.
gooseus 1 hours ago [-]
Really?
Seems way more obvious to me that Thiel/Vance/Musk would have Trump whacked... probably in the 2nd or 3rd year so that Vance can take power during a Reichstag fire with enough time left till elections in order for them to consolidate power.
Trump is primarily an actor pretending to be a gangster/president on TV to serve as a front for the real gangsters pilfering our government, at some point he will better serve those people by becoming a martyr in a way which transfers his power to someone else they control.
thatguy0900 2 minutes ago [-]
Trump being an actor is pretty important though. Does Vance really have the Charisma to keep carrying Maga?
brendoelfrendo 32 minutes ago [-]
I'm surprised to see this kind of blue-anon discourse here. Why are we discussing the players of this administration "whacking" each other? There's plenty of horrible things happening in broad daylight, harms that the administration is inflicting on the American people. Why add a layer of speculation about a power struggle where they may or may not be trying to harm each other, when there's no reason to believe such a thing exists? What matters is that they're getting along well enough in the moment to push through their agenda. Hell, Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of running for a third term, which would in and of itself be an illegal power grab; no need to speculate some scenario where Trump gets martyred and Vance takes over when the much simpler and more likely scenario is that Trump just ignores the law and does it himself.
Applejinx 48 minutes ago [-]
The trouble with that is that they're all fronting Russia's efforts to control the US government. This is why prosperity isn't exactly in the cards: that's the promise, but all the actions lead directly the other direction in conclusive ways.
Because that's the background, it explains Trump's prominence. He is trusted by Russia in ways a Musk or Thiel can never be, so if we're talking mysterious falls from balconies, it would be Musk, Thiel et al who are more in danger. They have to work with Trump, because Trump is the one Russia trusts, and that's because Russia made him. His wealth has never been real: he's an op from way back.
The Kremlin absolutely will not trust Elon Musk, nor should they. He's more capable, but he is most certainly scheming against them or even looking to supplant/eject Putin and replace him. Thiel is on less drugs and has the sense to stay out of the spotlight, so he will be trying to offer eternal life to Putin or something like that. Whether there's any truth to that is moot: it's whether Putin believes there is.
None of them are safe replacements for Trump, because they all hold power of their own. Trump stays so long as he lives, because he doesn't hold power of his own, and is therefore safe to use as the puppet.
2 hours ago [-]
techright75 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
daedrdev 2 hours ago [-]
?????
guntars 1 hours ago [-]
It’s a bot. They’re everywhere these days.
acdha 3 hours ago [-]
This part is really damning: a real efficiency audit might need a lot of access to look for signs of hidden activity, but they’d never need to hide traces of what they did:
> Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
The subsequent message about Russian activity could be a coincidence–Internet background noise-but given how these are not very technically skilled and are moving very fast in systems they don’t understand, I’d be completely unsurprised to learn that they unintentionally left something exposed or that one of them has been compromised.
throw0101c 2 hours ago [-]
> This part is really damning: a real efficiency audit
There were already people auditing departments, but they got fired early on:
>A real efficiency audit might need a lot of access to look for signs of hidden activity, but they’d never need to hide traces of what they did
In fact I would imagine they would do exactly the opposite because they would look at the mere ability to hide what they did as an audit finding.
ndsipa_pomu 2 hours ago [-]
> criminal or state-sponsored hackers
It looks to be both
Applejinx 46 minutes ago [-]
Compromised implies they're not the Russian team to start with. I'd be looking for one of them to lose nerve and betray that ALL of them are the Russian team.
tjpnz 2 hours ago [-]
Everything's going to have to be replaced and it's going to be hugely expensive. But that's not going to happen until at least 2029 - plenty of time for bad actors to get settled in and cause real damage.
c-linkage 2 hours ago [-]
Do you honestly believe there will be fair elections in 2028?
More importantly, do you believe there will be elections?
setsewerd 43 minutes ago [-]
Out of curiosity, since you appear to be very certain of this, what are you doing personally to deal with this? Are you leaving the country, moving into the hills, building a bunker, etc? I don't mean to sound antagonistic or anything, I genuinely would like to know.
aftbit 2 hours ago [-]
Do you honestly believe there have ever been _fair_ elections in America? Do you honestly believe there will not be at least _some_ kind of election in 2028? Even if it's staged, form must be respected.
atkailash 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
consumer451 23 minutes ago [-]
It is absolutely hilarious what does and does not get flagged on this website.
The other day on /active, there was a story about a French politician being banned from running for office, due to being convicted of outright fraud, for the second time. Absolutely nothing to do with technology or business, nothing to do with the USA. Pure politics in a foreign country. Not flagged.
There was a story right below which involved the USA, technology and business, but had an inconvenient narrative for some users. Flagged.
As someone who still likes this site a lot, this just makes me laugh at this point.
Capricorn2481 4 minutes ago [-]
Because, naturally, people on here want to harm you. We can't say it out loud, but that's where the U.S. climate is right now. HN is not immune from it, and is likely more susceptible to it given the demographic. They flag to keep people from saying it.
pnutjam 3 hours ago [-]
This checks out because all those DOGE hires appear to be hackers, and they are now state sponsored.
Most of them could never pass a basic background check, much less a TS or even public trust from one of the more invasive Federal agencies.
> The best-known member of Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service team of technologists once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent, according to digital records reviewed by Reuters.
It’s a common mistake to think that folks like the parent commenter are trying to engage in an intellectually honest discussion.
ceejayoz 2 hours ago [-]
I'm under no illusions they're commenting in good faith, but at times I find it valuable to highlight that fact.
morkalork 2 hours ago [-]
"Hark" goes the sealion, "sources?"
pc86 2 hours ago [-]
I looked through the filing cited in this comment and every instance of the word "background" just says that backgrounds for a given employee are either complete or in progress, plus the quote. Nothing indicates anyone failed any background check (to the contrary just by count it seems like about half of them have been completed), and certainly nothing indicates that "most of them could never pass" one. Which again just by virtue of about half of them having been completed already seems to be false on its face.
It's not unusual to give an otherwise-qualified person limited access to certain data while their background checks are completed.
flanked-evergl 2 hours ago [-]
That in no way supports the claim: "Most of them could never pass a basic background check".
If there is no support for it, and if it is baseless, that is entirely fine.
SoyAnto 2 hours ago [-]
Providing support for known criminal groups would immediately raise flags on any background check.
Do you need a source on that claim as well?
randunel 2 hours ago [-]
Is the article unclear? Would people who collaborate with known criminal groups pass basic background checks?
Granted, the sample size is low, but it doesn't look likely the rest of the gang would be any different.
flanked-evergl 2 hours ago [-]
One staffer is not "most of them". The article in no way supportes the claim.
bryanrasmussen 2 hours ago [-]
a basic background check would invalidate someone with the described background.
boesboes 2 hours ago [-]
Source: water is wet.
Go gaslight somewhere else.
tlogan 2 hours ago [-]
The unfortunate reality is that a half of the US population sees the NLRB as a burden on small businesses—primarily because its policies shift frequently, making compliance costly and complex for those without deep legal resources. [1]
And the same half of the population do not trust anything what npr.org says.
Understanding the above dynamic is key to grasping the current state of discourse in the U.S.
Some may claim that NPR is retaliating for getting defunded for the next 2 years.
brendoelfrendo 42 minutes ago [-]
An odd claim, since NPR getting defunded is itself a retaliation from the current administration for not reporting positively enough about Trump.
softwaredoug 3 hours ago [-]
Some context as I understand it is DOGE employees are all temporary gov't employees whose employment expires (in June?). Assuming they follow the law there (big If), then they scramble around these agencies with tremendous urgency trying to please Elon (or the powers that be?).
And they absolutely should be resisted with this deadline in mind...
bilekas 1 hours ago [-]
This isn't really a shock to me, but what's more frustrating I guess is that absolutely nothing will come of this. I have zero confidence any of this will even be cleaned up, just the same ranting about "fake news".
Really feels like the fox is already in the coop.
ck2 2 hours ago [-]
That backdoor code is going to lurk for decades.
Not only will Musk be able to tap into it for years but foreign governments.
bilbo0s 2 hours ago [-]
This is the real problem, and the reason we never should have allowed access to sensitive government and societal data in this fashion.
2 hours ago [-]
grandempire 2 hours ago [-]
> The small, independent federal agency
I still don’t think this notion holds up. Which branch are they under, who do they report to?
> after they started detecting suspicious log-in attempts from an IP address in Russia
Why would real Russian hackers not do anything to obscure their ip? Also if you have ever run a public server you have gotten such requests from Russia.
This appears to be in the article to mislead technical readers and prey on russia anxiety.
pavel_lishin 2 hours ago [-]
> > The small, independent federal agency
> I still don’t think this notion holds up.
What notion doesn't hold up? That a federal agency can be small & independent?
> Which branch are they under, who do they report to?
> The NLRB is governed by a five-person board and a general counsel, all of whom are appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate. Board members are appointed for five-year terms and the general counsel is appointed for a four-year term. The general counsel acts as a prosecutor and the board acts as an appellate quasi-judicial body from decisions of 36 administrative law judges, as of November 2023.[4] The NLRB is headquartered at 1015 Half St. SE, Washington, D.C., and it has over 30 regional, sub-regional, and residential offices throughout the United States.
> Why would real Russian hackers not do anything to obscure their ip?
Why would the fox bother hiding the hole someone dug for it under the henhouse?
_heimdall 2 hours ago [-]
Its also worth noting that the NLRB has a proposed budget of $320M for the the 2025 fiscal year and a total of around 1,300 employees [1].
I'm a strong proponent of small government and don't know enough about the NLRB to say if I would find them useful, but that is well within the range of a small federal department today.
> That a federal agency can be small & independent?
Yes. They are either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branch.
And before you send more Wikipedia links, be aware there is a long history and chain of Supreme Court cases about this question.
> Why would the fox bother hiding the hole someone dug for it under the henhouse?
Still spreading the Russian asset conspiracy theory? Why wouldn’t they want to hide their crimes from future enemies?
kasey_junk 2 hours ago [-]
Yes. And the current precedent is very clear that these independent agencies are constitutional.
The current court has not, yet, overturned that precedent. There is lots of reason to believe they will, in an extremely contentious ruling. But for now they haven’t.
We are going to find out one way or another though because this admin is pushing hard up against the question.
Of course it’s also pushing hard up on the question of if the courts can constrain it at all so the grade school understanding of separation of powers is real.
StopDisinfo910 1 hours ago [-]
> Yes. They are either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branch.
That’s not what independent means here.
Most independent agencies are part of the executive branch (some are part of the legislative and judiciary but they are the exception).
They are independent because congress gave the president limited power in their ability to dismiss the agency head and its members. These agencies have some regulatory authority which Congress has vested them on purpose.
You might argue under the unitary executive theory of law that these agencies are actually under the control of the president and the current Supreme Court (for what it’s worth) might even agree with you.
I might argue that it’s a complete travestissement of the constitution spirit and intent pushed forward by people who wish to dismantle the American republic and replace it by an authoritarian regime. But that’s on me.
grandempire 1 hours ago [-]
Indeed the meaning of independent is more limited. But what wants to be implied by the media and posters here - the reason why the article leads with this, is to suggest these are groups that cannot be commanded by the president and his staff.
My only claim is that is false and misleading.
2 hours ago [-]
pavel_lishin 1 hours ago [-]
> Still spreading the Russian asset conspiracy theory?
If something smells like shit everywhere you go, it's not a conspiracy to suggest checking the bottom of your shoe.
AIPedant 2 hours ago [-]
The NLRB is one of many independent agencies of the executive branch created by Congrees, and they don't report to anyone except for their own boards. The president and Congress have influence over the boards but no direct control over the agency. The idea that the president can just ignore these laws because of a "unitary executive" theory is authoritarian bullshit.
And the concern probably isn't Russian hackers, it's American hackers spoofing their IP address. Also you are ignoring that DOGE made the server public when it wasn't supposed to be.
grandempire 2 hours ago [-]
> The idea that the president can just ignore these laws because of a "unitary executive" theory is authoritarian bullshit.
The question of whether the president is violating congresses power by downsizing or neutering an agency they have created is something democrats should pursue.
But no - there are no people outside the org chart. That’s just dysfunctional, no man can serve two masters, etc.
If it were true than congress can create agencies for themselves with more power than is granted them in the constitution.
etchalon 1 hours ago [-]
The Congress can make laws. That's like ... their whole thing.
AIPedant 2 hours ago [-]
This is still authoritarian bullshit. Your argument is that you think independent agencies are a bad idea, and therefore it's a-okay for Trump to simply ignore 80 years of law and Supreme Court rulings.
More generally, nobody in the executive branch serves any master. They serve the law and are legally obligated to refuse and report illegal orders. The idea that they serve Master Donald Trump (or Vizier Elon Musk), and that illegal orders must be enforced because it is Trump's will, is precisely why Kilmar Abrego Garcia was illegally deported and why Trump is musing about doing the same thing to US citizens.
grandempire 1 hours ago [-]
I think a lot of Supreme Court cases will come out of this administration, I just don’t think the sovereignty of independent federal agencies is going to be one of them.
I guess we will wait and see.
grandempire 2 hours ago [-]
> particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets
This entire article appears to be speculation about data they MAY have taken with no evidence besides large file size that they are misusing something.
The discussion with the “whistle blower” and other experts is only about how serious it would be IF they misused it.
Am I reading it wrong?
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago [-]
There is evidence DOGE went out of its way to illegally conceal what it was doing. That, alone, is enough to put these kids in jail one day.
Sonnigeszeug 44 minutes ago [-]
There were already news from weeks ago how they started to put servers on the internet with access to systems, which should not have access to/from the internet for security reasons.
This is just on top of all the other things. happened.
9283409232 2 hours ago [-]
Someone exfiltrated sensitive data. That isn't in question. The only question is who did it and why. As far as DOGE's involvement, there is no proof but there is plenty of evidence.
grandempire 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
bhouston 2 hours ago [-]
The issue is we don't know what they took and they took steps to hide their tracks. This is whacked territory we are in. You can defend it but normally there are checks and controls in government for a reason. The fact that we are normalizing that certain very ideologically groups in government do not have checks and balances is pretty strange - based on nothing more than a "trust us, we are the good guys." This never works out in the end.
grandempire 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
bhouston 2 hours ago [-]
It is right in the article:
"The small, independent federal agency investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It stores reams of potentially sensitive data, from confidential information about employees who want to form unions to proprietary business information."
"But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending."
And because DOGE deleted the access records and logs, we cannot prove it either way. That is pretty suspicious.
2 hours ago [-]
9283409232 2 hours ago [-]
> Then, Berulis started tracking sensitive data leaving the places it's meant to live, according to his official disclosure. First, he saw a chunk of data exiting the NxGen case management system's "nucleus," inside the NLRB system, Berulis explained. Then, he saw a large spike in outbound traffic leaving the network itself.
> From what he could see, the data leaving, almost all text files, added up to around 10 gigabytes — or the equivalent of a full stack of encyclopedias if someone printed them, he explained. It's a sizable chunk of the total data in the NLRB system, though the agency itself hosts over 10 terabytes in historical data. It's unclear which files were copied and removed or whether they were consolidated and compressed, which could mean even more data was exfiltrated.
> Berulis says someone appeared to be doing something called DNS tunneling to prevent the data exfiltration from being detected. He came to that conclusion, outlined in his disclosure, after he saw a traffic spike in DNS requests parallel to the data being exfiltrated, a spike 1,000 times the normal number of requests.
> And Berulis noticed that an unknown user had exported a "user roster," a file with contact information for outside lawyers who have worked with the NLRB.
And more if you actually read the article. About a third of it is about the data that was taken.
grandempire 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
bhouston 2 hours ago [-]
Why did they actively hide their tracks? In law this relates to:
- Spoliation of evidence - Intentionally destroying or concealing evidence can lead to legal sanctions and adverse inferences.
- Consciousness of guilt - Actions taken to cover tracks (deleting logs, hiding records) are often admissible to show awareness of wrongdoing.
- Obstruction of justice - Deliberately impeding an investigation by destroying evidence is itself a crime in many jurisdictions.
dashundchen 2 hours ago [-]
Don't forget the whistleblower intimidation!
> Meanwhile, his attempts to raise concerns internally within the NLRB preceded someone "physically taping a threatening note" to his door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone, according to a cover letter attached to his disclosure filed by his attorney, Andrew Bakaj of the nonprofit Whistleblower Aid.
I'm so sick of the endless attempts to downplay or misdirect on the outrageous things Republicans/Trump/DOGE happening everyday.
If a Democratic admin were to do this they would be howling and rightly so. Trump and the GOP are turning the federal government into an authoritarian mob state.
Everyone should be outraged - even if it's for only the fact that you yourself may be a target of this or future administrations as it becomes normal practice.
bhouston 1 hours ago [-]
> If a Democratic admin were to do this they would be howling and rightly so. Trump and the GOP are turning the federal government into an authoritarian mob state. You should be outraged - even if it's for only the fact that you yourself may be a target of this or future administrations as it becomes normal practice.
As a Canadian I am already scared of visiting the US. I've re-posted UNRWA, Unicef, MSF and WFP criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza on social media. I could very well be viewed as being a someone who is undermining US foreign policy goals and either detained, deported or at best denied entry to the US.
Sure, I bet if you found a physically threatening note at your work with pictures from someone following you near your home, you'd be cool with it. Totally normal and non-criminal behaivor.
> Whistleblower is a journalist word used to establish the good guy in a story.
It's not a journalist word, there is an official whistleblowing process to Congress and OIG the mentioned employee went through.
But you would either have needed to have read and understood the article you're commenting on or not be commenting in bad-faith.
grandempire 49 minutes ago [-]
So part of the government process for becoming an official whistleblower is disclosing it to the press, even when the agency denied it happened?
intermerda 2 hours ago [-]
> Am I reading it wrong?
Based on your comments, you're not reading the article at all.
grandempire 2 hours ago [-]
Easiest way to correct me is with a quote - that way others can see your interpretation from the text.
dashundchen 2 hours ago [-]
Stop sealioning. Anyone can read the article. The evidence of suspicious behavior is clear and according to the article corroborated by a dozen experts.
The fact that someone tried to intimidate the whisteblower by posting threatening and stalking messages on his door shows there is something not above board here.
jasonlotito 2 hours ago [-]
Yes. You claim:
"This entire article appears to be speculation about data they MAY have taken with no evidence besides large file size that they are misusing something ...[and] is only about how serious it would be IF they misused it."
This paragraph makes it clear it's not just about misusing data and large file sizes.
> Those forensic digital records are important for record-keeping requirements and they allow for troubleshooting, but they also allow experts to investigate potential breaches, sometimes even tracing the attacker's path back to the vulnerability that let them inside a network.
Let's be clear:
> Those engineers were also concerned by DOGE staffers' insistence that their activities not be logged, allowing them to probe the NLRB's systems and discover information about potential security flaws or vulnerabilities without being detected.
Neither of these have to do with "large file size" or misusing data.
"Am I reading it wrong?"
Yes. Now, before you go moving goal posts, you made claims, and I've debunked those claims with quotes you said you needed. Because clearly the article is ALSO talking about these other things as problematic as well, so it's not "the entire article". (Also, the "entire article appears"? Appears? Just read it, it talks about numerous things, and is very clear on the different elements it's talking about.)
This isn't the only stuff mentioned, so be careful about claiming "oh, I just missed that" or some such because there are other things that can be referenced, such as the massive amount of text spent on the whistleblower issues and the threats made to them.
And before you talk about this just being "speculation," that's why we have the process we have, so people can make claims that can then be investigated. And that's what's being stopped.
Finally, "no evidence besides large file size" is also not true.
"Am I reading it wrong?"
As someone said, it's more likely you didn't even read it.
arunabha 1 hours ago [-]
I am genuinely curious as to what your point is. Not saying it's wrong, but a succinct summary might be useful.
grandempire 2 hours ago [-]
> This paragraph makes it clear it's not just about misusing data and large file sizes.
No. They are simply regurgitating an intended use of logging systems - allowing us the reader to conclude that DOGE is violating the intent.
> Appears? Just read it, it talks about numerous things, and is very clear on the different elements it's talking about
It’s not clear at all. The article mixed all kinds of information intending to a suggest a narrative without making claims.
Example 1:
> NPR spoke to over 30 sources across the government, the private sector, the labor movement, cybersecurity and law enforcement who spoke to their own concerns about
So they talked to 30 white collar friends and asked them what they think about doge? This is not information.
Example 2:
> "I can't attest to what their end goal was or what they're doing with the data," said the whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, in an interview with NPR. "But I can tell you that the bits of the puzzle that I can quantify are scary. ... This is a very bad picture we're looking at."
Wait a minute - Tim the spokesmen goes on to deny the event happened. That means Daniel is responding to a journalist question about why DOGE MIGHT want data and the worst outcome. Who knows what was said in the ellipsis.
If you think this is quality journalism it’s because it’s telling you a message you want to hear that conforms to your personal narrative.
campuscodi 57 minutes ago [-]
DOGE staff are just behaving like a foreign cyber-espionage group at this point
soco 4 hours ago [-]
I'm not american so can somebody please explain me, how is deleting logs and every trace of your actions helping with government efficiency?
rsynnott 3 hours ago [-]
Nothing they are doing is related to government efficiency. You can't really put too much faith in names.
XorNot 2 hours ago [-]
The basic rule of government naming: the more of GOOD THING in the name, the less of that it will be.
viraptor 2 hours ago [-]
That generalises to a lot of naming. Papers like Fakt or Pravda, country DPKR, political parties that mention law, justice and order, etc.
rsynnott 2 hours ago [-]
I always particularly liked the Committee of Public Safety, for this (they're the ones who did the Reign of Terror, which doesn't seem _particularly_ public-safety-oriented.)
JKCalhoun 2 hours ago [-]
В « Правде » нет известий, а в « Известиях » нет правды
_heimdall 1 hours ago [-]
In the same way that finding waste while increasing the federal budget isn't efficiency.
Technically, maybe you can squint and find small pieces that are more efficient but in the grand scheme of things they goal doesn't seem to be a smaller government.
croes 4 hours ago [-]
How is firing people helping government efficiency?
_heimdall 1 hours ago [-]
Well you have to put context around what is being made more efficient.
Reducing headcount reduces labor costs and can be a form of financial efficiency. Reducing headcount also usually reduces the sheer number of people involved in any project, much like a small startup can move drastically quicker than a large, established org.
That said, there goal here doesn't seem to be clear as to what is being made efficient and they definitely aren't reducing the budget or size of government (outside of literal headcount, most people complain instead of red tape and regulations).
2OEH8eoCRo0 3 hours ago [-]
Yes, how?
lesuorac 3 hours ago [-]
Log storage is expensive.
skeeter2020 2 hours ago [-]
It's not the storage, but processing with NR and DataDog is what's expensive. That's why the efficiency team asked to not have their actions logged in the first place.
phanimahesh 2 hours ago [-]
I can honestly not tell if this comment was intended to be taken seriously, or if it was tongue in cheek.
alistairSH 3 hours ago [-]
Nothing about DOGE or the Trump administration is about efficiency. It's just a label they use to con gullible voters.
Their real goal is more likely a combination of grift and settling grudges.
Edit - typos
dandanua 2 hours ago [-]
The next administration won't be able to spend time and money investigating crimes of the current one /s
delusional 3 hours ago [-]
That way they can save some money litigating Elon and his goons. It's not like that litigation would get anywhere anyway, so better to save the public the waste /s
actionfromafar 4 hours ago [-]
To more efficiently rout trouble-makers and unions.
9283409232 3 hours ago [-]
It should be clear at this point that DOGE is trying to create a unified database of all persons in the US for targeting. Every single bit of data that they can get about you from the government or social media will be tagged to you Minority Report style. They were clear about wanting to deport citizens to El Salvador as well. Once you are identified as the other side they will come for you. If you are waiting for it to get worse before taking action and getting involved, we are already at that point.
> And Berulis noticed that an unknown user had exported a "user roster," a file with contact information for outside lawyers who have worked with the NLRB.
Possibly looking for lawyers for Trump to target with EOs or blackmail.
gotoeleven 44 minutes ago [-]
What has made them "clear about wanting to deport citizens to El Salvador" ? It's all illegal aliens up to this point.
MyOutfitIsVague 26 minutes ago [-]
Yesterday, Trump was talking about sending "homegrown criminals" to El Salvador, asking for 5 prisons be built for the purpose.
wormlord 2 hours ago [-]
How you are getting downvotes is beyond me. People are finally waking up to the idea that the whole point of the Trump admin is to privatize the government, but haven't woken up to the fact that we are entering an era of state terror. Keep your heads buried HN, you'll be dragged kicking and screaming into reality in a few months anyways.
giraffe_lady 2 hours ago [-]
It's extremely frustrating and something I've thought a lot about over the years where we were pretty obviously building towards this outcome. A couple things:
First the "average" american is softly but ideologically committed to liberalism¹ & democracy as fundamental values. From that perspective the mind kind of recoils from accepting this. If this is really what's happening, what does civic obligation demand of me? How does that reconcile with my inability to keep my family safe in the face of a motivated & powerful state that wishes to harm me through them? Easier to believe this isn't what is happening, I don't need to take action yet. A powerful example of motivated reasoning.
Second a significant part of the userbase here, as with the general population, supports some or all of these actions. Simple as.
¹ Like in the traditional sense, ie "a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law" from wikipedia.
tyrrvk 2 hours ago [-]
This coupled with the hot mike incident yesterday where Trump was saying how El Salvador needed to build more mega prisons for the "home grown..terrorists" is beyond concerning. Sure sounds like DOGE is compiling lists of 'less desirable s' that will soon be swept off the streets in unmarked vans. America has turned fully fascist.
dboreham 3 hours ago [-]
Are we great again yet?
giraffe_lady 4 hours ago [-]
The administration has said they want to start gulaging citizens. They aren't going to do it randomly, it'll start with sure actual criminals, and then people they think you'll believe are criminals, but why would they stop there. What can a palantir-ICE collaboration do with this data. "First they came for the trade unionists" is halfway through the poem you know.
marcosdumay 2 hours ago [-]
> it'll start with sure actual criminals
Have they targeted any single criminal yet? Because they have sent two planes of people here to Brazil and nobody there was wanted by either country.
Also, Brazil has a list of wanted criminals at Interpol with known addresses in Florida that they aren't arresting.
actionfromafar 4 hours ago [-]
Combined with "oops can't get them back" it's very powerful. Combine it with not advertising faces of snatched people on broadcast TV, and it's a very useful tool inded. People will just disappear. It won't be legal or illegal, just a thing that happens from time to time. Police won't search too hard for the missing people, because no good can come out of finding out.
practice9 2 hours ago [-]
Kinda similar in a way to China or Russia “disappearances”
thrance 4 hours ago [-]
They've already sent an innocent man there and acknowledged he was innocent, then refused to bring him back when the courts, the opposition and finally SCOTUS each commanded them to bring him back.
This was just a test, and it was successful. They can now disappear and deport anyone they want with no repercussions whatsoever. The GOP is a criminal organization and their followers share the responsibility of what happens next.
xnx 4 hours ago [-]
> then refused to bring him back when the courts
It was extra ridiculous/insulting/terrifying to see the heads of both countries in the same room saying that there was nothing they could do about the situation.
tromp 3 hours ago [-]
SCOTUS granting the president far reaching immunity was an invitation for the president to be in contempt of SCOTUS whenever it pleases him, and to just piss on the constitution he took an oath on defending.
rescripting 52 minutes ago [-]
It’s possible he is already dead, as he was basically sent right in to the arms of the gangs he fled from.
DaiPlusPlus 3 hours ago [-]
> This was just a test, and it was successful
It's too soon to say it's "successful": SCOTUS was 9-0 against and that was still only a few days ago, so far from being a success it's now turning into a constitutional crisis... assuming the administration doesn't fold, or flip-flop, or some combination of the two - which we've already seen plenty of[1].
----------
[1] the seemingly arbitrary and capricious tariff changes announced almost every day ever since the-day-after-April-fools-day.
thoroughburro 3 hours ago [-]
So, he’s being brought back then?
ben_w 2 hours ago [-]
Roll a D20: if it's even he comes back, if it's less than 10 he mysteriously disappears.
dionian 2 hours ago [-]
If you read the SCOTUS ruling, all it upholds from the lower courts decision is that the USG must 'facilitate', not 'effectuate' his release. AFAIK the Court doesn't have a way to order El Salvador to do so
avhception 3 hours ago [-]
Wasn't the argument for the right to bear arms always that it would prevent a criminal government from having it's way?
Now, how's that working out so far?
alabastervlog 3 hours ago [-]
Not “always”. It wasn’t the reason that became an amendment, national defense was. People later emphasized that rather off-label justification when state militias were nationalized and the main purpose of the amendment became wholly obsolete.
avhception 2 hours ago [-]
Today I learned, thanks! As a European, I'm not overly familiar with the genesis of American law ;)
wormlord 2 hours ago [-]
America's gun culture is very closely tied to its settler culture. Most right wing gun nuts are barely able to conceal their fears/hopes for a race war in all but name.
That said, there are plenty of examples of progressive forces arming themselves. The Black Panthers are a good example. Without their armed militancy I think the US government would have been a lot less likely to capitulate to the demands of the peaceful civil rights activists.
watwut 3 hours ago [-]
No. It was what peoppe who want to use guns to force own autocracy say.
The people with guns support these measures.
DFHippie 1 hours ago [-]
This. The 2A absolutists want guns to pacify their neighbors, not the government.
bavell 1 hours ago [-]
All* the people lamenting the current administration are scared of or want to ban firearms... whoops!
Now, imagine if those people had gotten their way, and how much easier it would be for the administration to do some of the things people claim it wants to do (e.g. gulags).
*Broad generalization
krapp 1 hours ago [-]
>Now, imagine if those people had gotten their way, and how much easier it would be for the administration to do some of the things people claim it wants to do (e.g. gulags).
Given that none of the people with firearms have done a damn thing to stop this and how many of them even voted for Trump and support his policies, because American gun and militia culture has been infested with Nazis since forever, I don't see how it could possibly have been any easier. There has been and continues to be no resistance to Trump of any significance. When he does open up the gulags for real, it's going to be America's armed patriot militias who round people up for the regime.
The administration's position is that this man was an illegal alien and that the stay order he had was illegal because he was a gang member. He's an el salvadorian citizen, subject to the laws of el salvador.
ltbarcly3 40 minutes ago [-]
This is not an accurate account of the situation. While I don't agree with the actions the government is taking here, I also don't think we are entitled to our own private facts about it.
Mr Garcia does not have a criminal record, but he was ordered to be deported years ago. He was able to get a temporary reprieve from this by hiring lawyers and working through the legal process, but he did this by almost certainly committing perjury by claiming there were criminal gangs who would kill him if he returned to El Salvador. If you believe the filings in immigration appeals you would have to believe that 99% of the people in the world are being personally pursued by criminal gangs. Perhaps you believe this but I don't find it to be credible. Regardless, whether the legal process is effective doesn't matter here, it IS the legal process and must be followed. My point is the fact Mr Garcia was deported is not itself the issue, it's that it was done in a way that ignores due process and the rule of law. Legally Mr Garcia should be deported, he was only allowed to stay temporarily until he is not "at risk for his life" if he were deported, but the legal process must be respected.
SCOTUS did not command anyone be brought back. They declined to issue an emergency decision blocking an order to 'facilitate' his return, but specifically sent back to the lower court and took issue with the order to 'effectuate' his return. So they are not commanding the government to bring him back, rather they are commanding the government to not prevent his return. Yes this is tedious but reality is often tedious.
> They can now disappear and deport anyone they want
I think you have not made any case that it is valid to assume that we would go from "one person who has already been ordered for deportation by a federal court" who was very publicly deported to "anyone they want" and "disappear".
I basically agree with your sentiment inaccuracy and hyperbole doesn't benefit anyone.
I'm assuming the response to this is going to be along the lines of 'oh this doesnt prove he was innocent, they say he was a member of ms-13 etc etc etc' because evidently innocent until proven guilty (which they provided no proof of) isn't a thing anymore
flanked-evergl 3 hours ago [-]
The article in no way claims the man was innocent. If you can't cite the claim thats okay, I did not think you could.
VoidWhisperer 3 hours ago [-]
"The US government has conceded Mr Ábrego García was deported because of an "administrative error", though it also says he is a member of the MS-13 gang - something his lawyer denies. "
Try actually reading the article next time. Again, the burden of proof here should be falling on PROVING he is a member of ms-13, not proving he isn't. You are obviously arguing this in bad faith.
flanked-evergl 2 hours ago [-]
Does not make him innocent. They had every right to remove him, just not to El Salvador[1].
The removal being in error does not make him innocent.
ceejayoz 1 hours ago [-]
Your link says the opposite of what you claim.
> Although the asylum claim proved to be time-barred—aliens are required to bring such claims within a year of entering the country—in October 2019 Judge Jones did grant his request for “withholding of removal” based on his “well-founded” fear of persecution by Barrio 18. The government did not appeal, so Jones’s ruling is now final.
> The removal being in error does not make him innocent.
Innocent is the default. That's a fundamental part of how our legal system works. The government must prove you guilty.
shadowfacts 1 hours ago [-]
They did not have "every right to remove him." As the article you linked says, Abrego Garcia was specifically granted a withholding of removal order.
alabastervlog 3 hours ago [-]
I can’t find any proof you’re innocent, only a complete lack or evidence that you are guilty.
Guess we better send you to CECOT. Have fun with your 0.6m^2 of living space. Too bad you weren’t innocent.
potato3732842 3 hours ago [-]
He's an illegal who had a credible (like actually credible, like you could pitch it to someone in the year 2002, not the flimsy 2020s BS) claim for asylum but didn't file in time. He was eventually caught up in the system for reasons not related to the commission of any crime. ICE looked at his case, and gave him a "we won't deport you because your case is pending" status.
viraptor 2 hours ago [-]
> He's an illegal ...
Edit; see below for details
flanked-evergl 2 hours ago [-]
This is false. He has no legal status [1]. He could be removed, just not to El Salvador. That does not give him legal status or make him a resident.
I've heard the legal status mentioned by an online-person-who-should-know-better. I'll let them know.
ceejayoz 11 minutes ago [-]
"Withholding of removal" is a form of legal status.
They can deport you (if they find a willing third party nation), as it's not a path to permanent resident status, but until they do so, you're allowed to reside and work.
> As in the case of asylum, a person who is granted withholding of removal is protected from being returned to
his or her home country and receives the right to remain in the United States and work legally. But at the end
of the court process, an immigration judge enters a deportation order and then tells the government they
cannot execute that order. That is, the “removal” to a person’s home country is “withheld.” However, the
government is still allowed to deport that person to a different country if the other country agrees to accept
them.
> Withholding of removal provides a form of protection that is less certain than asylum, leaving its recipients in a
sort of limbo. A person who is granted withholding of removal may never leave the United States without
executing that removal order, cannot petition to bring family members to the United States, and does not gain
a path to citizenship. And unlike asylum, when a family seeks withholding of removal together a judge may
grant protection to the parent while denying it to the children, leading to family separation.
potato3732842 2 hours ago [-]
I don't disagree, but I bet ICE doesn't see it that way. I mean why else would someone who's been granted a legal status pending his case wind up on their list of people to roll up on.
And that does make the deportation erroneous, that does not make him innocent.
ziddoap 3 hours ago [-]
If you google "innocent man sent to el salvador" you'll get dozens on dozens on dozens of results from which you can pick your favorite news site to catch up.
flanked-evergl 3 hours ago [-]
I checked the first two results and not one of them said the man was innocent [1][2]. It's okay if the claim is baseless and there is no citation, but asking me to find a citation for someone else's baseless claim is not really okay.
>asking me to find a citation for someone else's baseless claim is not really okay.
It is one of the biggest news stories in the last month, and various articles (at least 3 that I can think of) have been here on HN. It's trivially searchable. Asking for a citation is almost certainly bad faith.
>I checked the first two results and not one of them said the man was innocent
It's pretty obscure, but there's this thing called "innocent until proven guilty". The man never had his time in court. The US admitted it was a mistake. What are you looking for? Just being contrarian for the sake of it?
flanked-evergl 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ziddoap 2 hours ago [-]
Last reply, because you are very obviously trolling and commenting in bad faith.
>the US government had every right to deport him,
No.
These are all from that article. Special attention to "his removal was illegal".
>Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal record in the United States or anywhere else
>the government has conceded that it wrongfully removed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from the United States
>his removal was illegal because an immigration judge had granted him “withholding of removal”
The Supreme Court has even stepped in, which I'm sure you're aware despite pretending not to be:
>On April 7, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a per curiam order, with no recorded dissents, requiring the government to “facilitate [Abrego Garcia’s] return”
And, despite any and all of that! There was no due process. Which, "illegal" or "legal", everyone is supposed to get a due process. If you remove due process for the people you don't like, someone else just needs to claim you're in that group and now you don't get due process! It's like Step 1 of authoritarianism.
Which, since you've not posted anything proving your innocence despite other commenters asking for it, perhaps we should remove your rights to due process.
2 hours ago [-]
ceejayoz 3 hours ago [-]
Our system deems people innocent until proven guilty of a crime. That has not happened - he is not charged with any.
Can you cite anything showing him having been convicted of something?
flanked-evergl 3 hours ago [-]
I made no claim one way or the other. I asked you to cite a claim.
You probably were taught this in elementary school.
miltonlost 3 hours ago [-]
All you do is ask for "cite?" and then complain when the citation isn't want you asked for, partly because you never ask for anything specific. You're just a troll.
viraptor 3 hours ago [-]
"The Trump administration trapped a wrongly deported man in a catch-22", "There is no evidence that Abrego García is a terrorist or a member of the gang MS-13 as the Trump administration has claimed." from your first link.
flanked-evergl 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
viraptor 2 hours ago [-]
Unless you can find a court hearing / docket / charges, or some report about them, he's innocent.
If you think that's not enough, you're probably not innocent either... unless you have a way to prove that no charge exists against you in any jurisdiction in the world. Do you get why people assume innocence here now?
flanked-evergl 2 hours ago [-]
He entered illegally, had no legal status, had his asylum request rejected [1]. He was not innocent, he could be deported, just not to El Salvador.
You would think this administration would jump at the opportunity of showing the media any proof that Abrego Garcia was a member of any gang, no matter how circumstantial or weak the proof is. But I've yet to see any of it.
flanked-evergl 2 hours ago [-]
He entered illegally, had no legal status, had his asylum request rejected [1]. He was not innocent, he could be deported, just not to El Salvador.
You're moving the goalposts. You were arguing about his alleged gang membership and now your point is that he was an illegal.
Also, other users showed that his deportation was suspended as he had been threatened by the gang members you allege he's a member of.
viraptor 3 hours ago [-]
Check any website with news from the last few weeks.
flanked-evergl 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ziddoap 3 hours ago [-]
This is some grade A trolling.
atkailash 3 hours ago [-]
Cite? Really? I haven’t seen an article about the situation or the visit that didn’t mention it.
ajross 2 hours ago [-]
I've said this repeatedly, but write this down: before this administration is out we are going to have a major (probably multiple) scandal where DOGE staffers get caught with some kind of horrifying self-enrichment scam based on the data they're hoovering. It could be simple insider trading, it could be selling the data to a FBI sting, it might take lots of forms. But it's going to happen.
These are a bunch of 20-something tech bro ego cases convinced of their crusade to remake government along libertarian axes they learned from Reddit/4chan/HN. These are simply not people motivated out of a genuine desire to improve the public good. And they've been given essentially unsupervised access to some outrageously tempting levers.
potato3732842 2 hours ago [-]
Doesn't matter if they're good people or not "given essentially unsupervised access to some outrageously tempting levers" that scandal WILL happen eventually.
ndsipa_pomu 1 hours ago [-]
I think it's worse than that as the DOGE staffers are presumably picked according to Musk's preferences and he's not going to be looking for generous, well adjusted do-gooders, but selfish, arrogant, greedy racists. Presumably, they're also going to be targetted by other countries intelligence services with a mind to getting hold of the same data.
tonetheman 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
computerthings 4 hours ago [-]
[dead]
howmayiannoyyou 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
kemotep 3 hours ago [-]
Well it would help if there weren’t numerous issues with the data as presented on that site. Specifically now they are only claiming somewhere around 28 billion saved in cancelled contracts when in early February they claimed like 55 billion. Seems odd that over time the amount saved would go down despite the alleged number being of cancellations going up.
Also it is concerning that the largest amount from an individual contract saved is a cancelled deportation facility contract. Seems at odds with the Administration’s goals to ramp up mass deportation but cancel the contract for building a holding facility for unaccompanied minors.
My suggestion would be if the goal is to eliminate debt we would need to target social security reform such as raising the retirement ages and eliminating the cap on the payroll tax. Additionally, but far less realistic would be implementing a Land Value Tax. Not cancel random contracts that amount to a tiny fraction of the budget and propose massive tax cuts like the current administration seems to be doing.
fads_go 3 hours ago [-]
The parent's russian propoganda post does not mention that the posted savings are full of inaccuracies.
Nor does the propoganda define "waste", if one looks at the actual cuts, it seems to be focused on "things Herr M. doesn't like". which is not a good definition of "waste".
I've timestamped the above video to where it mentions the Clinton / Gore bit, but the whole video is enlightening.
alabastervlog 3 hours ago [-]
There are also constant ongoing efforts at improving efficiency, which is why they keep going “ah ha! We found it!” then poor bureaucrats who are trying to do their fucking jobs while these idiots run around messing things up have to explain, “no, you’re seeing an artifact of record-keeping practices that exist because [very good reason], you’re wrong yet again, maybe try asking literally anyone who knows about these data sets”
They also love to throw around the word “fraud” while bringing no charges. Despite the DOJ being in Trump’s control. Same pattern as other lies (“rampant voter fraud! We have proof” ok so when you’re in change you’ll prosecute, right? You should! That’s bad if true! I mean I’ve looked at your proof and it doesn’t appear true, but maybe you have more proof you haven’t shown! “Uhhh… [smoke bomb]”)
Plus, we have the GAO and CBO. Trump won’t want to listen to them because they’ll say “our #1 problem is we keep cutting taxes”, and “there’s not much waste to be eliminated cutting government workers”, because that’s true at this point, but they exist. It’s not like nobody’s been looking at these kinds of things. That’s just bullshit.
djaychela 3 hours ago [-]
"The people voted for major reform."
What they got was a pocket-lining idiot, and genuinely one of the most morally bankrupt people I've ever known of as his tech right-hand man. Musk is a moral imbecile, a 13-year old incel trapped in the body of an overweight mid-50s mess. Yes, he's been involved in some great things (SpaceX and Tesla), but he thinks that translates into a god-like ability to do anything and that he's right about everything.
These numbers don't even stand up to casual scrutiny. And I'm from the UK so it doesn't really directly affect me (although the orange idiot's shenanigans have done so to a small degree). But if you really believe this site, you're divorced from reality, and maybe drinking the same kool-aid that the tech muppets who are on DOGE are.
ipython 3 hours ago [-]
Realistic alternative? How about starting by reading tfa? I’d say you don’t need to physically threaten people who ask for basic security practices to be followed, for one.
cedws 3 hours ago [-]
DOGE results according to DOGE. We all know what kind of track record Elon Musk has as a bullshitter.
piva00 2 hours ago [-]
Not only that, Trump has already spent US$ 155B more than Biden, DOGE claims to have shaved US$ 150B, overall this administration has already increased spending by US$ 5B even after firing a lot of civil servants.
The worst is that the effects of this shaving off will only be felt over time, when National Parks start crumbling, when ATCs start quitting, the government machine of the USA has been eroded, inevitably it will fall into a landslide.
Peritract 3 hours ago [-]
Do you have a more independent/reliable source?
acdha 3 hours ago [-]
First, every objective audit has found many problems with that data, ranging from taking credit for things which were terminated under the Biden administration to listing the maximum ceiling on a flexible contract (IDIQ) as the total savings even though the amounts actually spent were far lower (like canceling your credit card and saying you saved the limit), and even counting the same contract multiple times.
Second, you have to look at the cost of their actions. They’ve disrupted the functioning of the entire federal government and doing in a very haphazard manner. That means that a lot of current spending is wasted by DOGE _and_ that the business of the government isn’t getting done. For example, whether or not you think the U.S. should engage in foreign aid, under DOGE they paid money to send people to help in Myanmar only to lay them off after they arrived on site, squandering all possible value. That story is being repeated all over the country right now and in many cases the loses are permanent: if they choose to waste payroll having people come back to an office where they can’t work, the job isn’t getting done and there’s no way to recover the wasted payroll. As they keep losing lawsuits, it’s also likely that the amounts cut will be exceeded by the cost of settlements when they breach contracts or fail to provide a service required by statute.
One really big area is tax collection: the IRS is already estimating revenue reductions on the order of half a billion dollars, and since they’ve been sacking a lot of the law enforcement for businesses and high-net wealth individuals, that will get worse as people feel confident cheating more aggressively.
Lastly, you have to look at the economy. Estimated have each federal job supporting 2-3 other jobs, and federal spending drives the economy in many parts of the country. They’ve already cut growth of the entire economy into the negative (from +2.5% in January to -2-3% now - see https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow) and a lot of that is driven by federal cuts.
hypeatei 3 hours ago [-]
There were already people called "inspector generals" which handled waste, fraud, and abuse but Trump fired about 17 of them in his first week. Deploying tech bros to solve the problem is naive at best and malicious at worst. The arrogance in assuming that no auditor before them looked into the SSA database and saw DOB records going back to 1875 is outstanding.
Sonnigeszeug 3 hours ago [-]
You do understand, that the upcoming tax cuts for rich people will throw the USA Debt above defence savings?
And it will increase the debt significantly?
All of that while DOGE, some random dudes without any understanding how things work, stop things which are globally agreed on (global aid) or just not even worth mentioning in the grand schem?
But hey if you prefer to defend DOGE ssaving 160 Billion while the tax cut for the rich adds Trillions to debt, yeah do a happy dance. Be proud. Or whatever your comment is trying to do.
Funny that IRS also gets defunded. But hey taxes right? :D
josefresco 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
yodsanklai 2 hours ago [-]
> This is like 947 on a list of terrible things happening because of this administration.
This is on purpose. Trump has been slowly pushing the Overton window. It seems everything is fair game and US citizens are largely apathetic, scared or favorable to Trump's action.
etchalon 1 hours ago [-]
There are basically weekly protests at this point.
US Citizens aren't apathetic. Our representatives on the other hand...
bruhwait 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
mistrial9 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
josefresco 2 hours ago [-]
> rampantly false
Is Abrego Garcia not real?
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
HelloMcFly 2 hours ago [-]
"Disappeared" in this sense refers to the manner in which he was abducted, not his ongoing status. The word is not subject to a strict legalese interpretation in these comments.
Though I'd argue both uses are acceptable in common use discussion since even if we know where he is since he's going to be incarcerated indefinitely with no due process, no access to lawyers, no civil rights. How long could he be dead without anyone knowing? Literally indefinitely?
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago [-]
> word is not subject to a strict legalese interpretation in these comments
Disappearing has been consistently used to refer to illegal and inconspicuous detention since WWII. The person was there and now they are not. There is no arrest record. There are no lawyers. There is certainly no case record where government officials are being questioned [1]. They may be detained, dead or on holiday. The ambiguity, which permits bystanders to assume normality, is the terrifying key.
Diluting the term, particularly on this precipice, is incredibly dangerous.
> How long could he be dead without anyone knowing?
Going off sworn statements to courts (again, something victims of disappearance do not get), a few hours.
> Diluting the term, particularly on this precipice, is incredibly dangerous.
It's already diluted, you've already lost the battle, but I neither believe it is dangerous nor do I believe it improper.
What I think is dangerous is this game of semantic precision you're playing where we lose the forest from the trees. I think we should be frightened of and wringing our hands about is not a dictionary definition, it's what we're literally seeing: never mind we know where they are at, we know that right now many are not being given due process and there are active attempts to subvert any attempts at them (i.e., rapidly moving to a more friendly district in LA, putting on planes faster than lawyers can respond).
If someone got black bagged and flown to a CIA black site in Yemen, would you "Well, actually" me if I said they'd been disappeared just because we know they're in a Yemen black site? Maybe you would, and I'd roll my eyes then too.
> Going off sworn statements to courts (again, something victims of disappearance do not get), a few hours.
The same courts whose authority is either being actively challenged AND actively ignored by the Executive branch, including so far in this exact case? The executive branch who has punished its DOJ lawyers for being candid with judges? The executive branch who fully controls the relationship with the government housing the detainment facility and who is the only route to fixing this issue? How many more breaks in normalcy and functioning governance do you need to see before you start doubting their good faith responses, much less effort?
JumpCrisscross 37 minutes ago [-]
> It's already diluted, you've already lost the battle
It’s not. The only place you see it being used this way is in a section of social media that blows everything out of proportion.
Where I agree is that the battle may be lost. In the same was “defund the police” (versus better regulate) kneecapped the criminal-justice reform movement, and bee-lining to “genocide” (versus the horrors of war and alleged genocide) hurt the Palestinian cause in America, this sort of premature extrapolation makes this case look unserious. Because if the person who is calling what’s clearly not one a disappearance or concentration camp, why would one bother with habeus corpus?
> If someone got black bagged and flown to a CIA black site in Yemen, would you "Well, actually" me if I said they'd been disappeared just because we know they're in a Yemen black site?
No. That’s disappearance. The CIA doesn’t comment on its renditions, much less argue them in an open court.
> same courts whose authority is either being actively challenged AND actively ignored by the Executive branch, including so far in this exact case?
Challenged, not ignored. From what I can tell the administration is begrudgingly complying with the letter of the judges’ (and justices’) orders [1].
I agree with your examples of language dilution being harmful, but sorry I just don't agree with this one. I think we're seeing a smarter form of disappearance, one where we know who took them, we know where they end up, but there is a clear and - I think to most reasonable people - obvious bad faith attempt to place them outside of due process or monitoring for constitutionally compliant treatment.
> No. That’s disappearance. The CIA doesn’t comment on its renditions, much less argue them in an open court.
You didn't engage with the hypothetical and changed the situation since it's not representative of how things work today. One year ago, the current situation would have been similarly described. I don't think it was an unfair thought exercise given the circumstances.
> Challenged, not ignored. From what I can tell the administration is begrudgingly complying with the letter of the judges’ (and justices’) orders
I guess we'll see. I think we just fundamentally disagree here. I think a smart administrative state would disappear people just like this, it feels like an evolution of KGB tactics that adds some documentation, but the outcome is precisely the same.
veridies 2 hours ago [-]
Supreme Court justice Sotomayor notes that nothing in the government’s reasoning about not returning Garcia is unique to noncitizens. President Trump says he wants to send “homegrowns” to the gulag in El Salvador, and is exploring his legal options. In court, the government has argued that they have no recourse to force the return of any prisoner from that gulag. This is neither false nor inflammatory; it is the administration’s stated goal.
freen 2 hours ago [-]
Some of us work in tech and have skin colors that are similar to the person in question, and are deciding on the level of risk we are willing to take.
That this is not obvious to you is a clear indication of the fact that this isn’t something you personally worry about.
phanimahesh 2 hours ago [-]
It is probably not a bad idea for people that don't fit in to consider obtaining citizenship elsewhere for their safety. Some non citizens are returning, though many who are considering this are tied down by their work or other constraints.
gibsonf1 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
indoordin0saur 2 hours ago [-]
"Whistleblower details how executive branch looked at executive branch's data."
Sonnigeszeug 38 minutes ago [-]
I fixed it for you: "Whistleblower details how a temporary group of very young people, who would never get access to sensitive data, are disabling/hiding what they are doing with highliy sensitive data of an executive, potentially circumventing safety mechanism in place to protect the data of all americans".
Btw. there is NO reason why they couldn't do all of that in a sincere way. Trump was voted in for 4 years.
Rendered at 15:44:27 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
At this point it simply looks like DOGE is yet another attempt to use a popular trope (Govt fraud and waste) to push through changes specifically designed to give unchecked power to one individual.
This much concentrated, unchecked power opens up vast opportunities for fraud and corruption and there are pretty much no instances in history where it turned out be to a good thing in retrospect.
Also, very surprised this story made it to the front page. Typically, stuff like this gets flagged off the front page within minutes.
Why would that be, because it's too "political" for tech news? Or are there actual DOGE sympathies within the HN population?
But you're out of patience with the wrong sources.
https://fortune.com/2025/03/27/a-doge-staffer-working-as-a-s...
This partisan talking point isn't just boring it's revisionist history. USDS is an Obama creation. At one point Obama had then-VP Biden in charge of government efficiency efforts utilizing USDS to do it: literally the DOGE playbook with a different name, except the person in charge now actively wants to have fewer federal employees. That's the only difference I see so far.
It makes some sense to hire a former blackhat to secure your computers, with appropriate supervision. It's a lot less reasonable to hire a former blackhat to get into your own computer and treasury systems to run audits. I could almost buy an argument like "If you have a legal right to get in but the door is locked, you hire a locksmith to crack the lock. So they needed hackers to take control of the systems away from obstructionists." But you would then send the locksmith home, not have them root through all the records in the building and decide who to fire.
> At one point Obama had then-VP Biden in charge of government efficiency efforts utilizing USDS to do it: literally the DOGE playbook with a different name, except the person in charge now actively wants to have fewer federal employees.
Could you provide more information on Biden's nominal assignment, and what exactly he was supposed to make more efficient? I couldn't find it by Googling, as everything is about DOGE now.
Anyway, on USDS in general. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service:
> It provides consultation services to federal agencies on information technology. The agency's 2014 mandate was to improve and simplify digital service, and to improve federal websites.[7][8][9] The mission of the agency is to "deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design."
I could agree that these could be termed "efficiency", but clearly they are very different from the goals of DOGE. USDS had a 2016 value statement that included "Hire and empower great people." So yeah, they didn't reduce the government headcount, as it wasn't their goal and that's not the only way to deliver "efficiency" or government improvement.
The Obama origins are a historical footnote and possibly done this way by Trump for legal expediency reasons. But USDS and DOGE have basically nothing else in common. Most of the USDS staff were fired, their mission statement is replaced. You're holding USDS accountable to DOGE's goals, when USDS didn't share those goals. In 2024 USDS reported "$285 million in projected estimated savings over five years in infrastructure expenses for the Social Security Administration" according to Wikipedia, so it's not like they were allergic to saving money, they just didn't do it by axing the bureaucracy.
Here's some more information about the differences between the original USDS and DOGE: https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/03/05/trump-doge-obama/
Well, right now, the flagged one was "Oh, you guys are adorable.", which didn't try to make a substantive argument or convey information. At least the Cheeto one did. "Adorable" is the least-civil and least-useful comment, so it's not only ideology that explains why it got flagged.
I'd love it if partisan comments regardless of affiliation were more aggressively pruned and the accounts behind them more aggressively moderated, but what we have currently is... not that.
They could have done the exact same thing in the middle of the day when nobody was home and everybody would be alive today.
They could have waited until daylight and knocked on the door with their warrant and walked right in.
They could have worn body cameras as ATF policy and common sense demands.
"Arms trafficking" is a funny way to say "buying guns legally and reselling them at gun shows" but let's say every single thing said about him is 100% true. If you think someone is a gun runner why wouldn't you take their house when they're not home to get all the evidence without having to worry about what they're doing? Why wouldn't you arrest him at the airport, where he almost certainly isn't armed, and police presence won't raise any alarms?
This is the form you fill out when you purchase a gun[0]. Please let me know where on this form you "promise not to resell" a firearm you purchase.
Straw purchases are illegal. Reselling firearms is not.
[0] https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/4473-part-1-firearms-trans...
Among many other points that are wrong - everyone involved agrees there was plenty of knocking.
> They could have waited until daylight and knocked on the door with their warrant and walked right in.
Search warrants almost always begin at 6am - and when weapons are involved, they almost always execute them soon after.
> Search warrants almost always begin at 6am - and when weapons are involved, they almost always execute them soon after.
I'm not making any comment on whether or not this itself is standard practice, but it seems pretty obvious to me that if this raid was conducted 4 hours later Malinowski would be alive today.
It likely could've been resolved if they'd just sent him a letter asking to meet him at the Federal Building but who wants to be a desk jockey when you can play dress up like GI Joe?
But kick a door down in your sparkling clean body armor and perp walk some guy who makes a quarter million dollars a year out of his mansion and you're well on your way.
Seems way more obvious to me that Thiel/Vance/Musk would have Trump whacked... probably in the 2nd or 3rd year so that Vance can take power during a Reichstag fire with enough time left till elections in order for them to consolidate power.
Trump is primarily an actor pretending to be a gangster/president on TV to serve as a front for the real gangsters pilfering our government, at some point he will better serve those people by becoming a martyr in a way which transfers his power to someone else they control.
Because that's the background, it explains Trump's prominence. He is trusted by Russia in ways a Musk or Thiel can never be, so if we're talking mysterious falls from balconies, it would be Musk, Thiel et al who are more in danger. They have to work with Trump, because Trump is the one Russia trusts, and that's because Russia made him. His wealth has never been real: he's an op from way back.
The Kremlin absolutely will not trust Elon Musk, nor should they. He's more capable, but he is most certainly scheming against them or even looking to supplant/eject Putin and replace him. Thiel is on less drugs and has the sense to stay out of the spotlight, so he will be trying to offer eternal life to Putin or something like that. Whether there's any truth to that is moot: it's whether Putin believes there is.
None of them are safe replacements for Trump, because they all hold power of their own. Trump stays so long as he lives, because he doesn't hold power of his own, and is therefore safe to use as the puppet.
> Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
The subsequent message about Russian activity could be a coincidence–Internet background noise-but given how these are not very technically skilled and are moving very fast in systems they don’t understand, I’d be completely unsurprised to learn that they unintentionally left something exposed or that one of them has been compromised.
There were already people auditing departments, but they got fired early on:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general#United_State...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_dismissals_of_inspectors_...
There's even an entire agency devoted to auditing:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Offi...
Trying to find efficiency by bringing in the private sector is not a new thing:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Commission
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownlow_Committee
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Commission
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinv...
In fact I would imagine they would do exactly the opposite because they would look at the mere ability to hide what they did as an audit finding.
It looks to be both
More importantly, do you believe there will be elections?
The other day on /active, there was a story about a French politician being banned from running for office, due to being convicted of outright fraud, for the second time. Absolutely nothing to do with technology or business, nothing to do with the USA. Pure politics in a foreign country. Not flagged.
There was a story right below which involved the USA, technology and business, but had an inconvenient narrative for some users. Flagged.
As someone who still likes this site a lot, this just makes me laugh at this point.
> The best-known member of Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service team of technologists once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent, according to digital records reviewed by Reuters.
It's not unusual to give an otherwise-qualified person limited access to certain data while their background checks are completed.
If there is no support for it, and if it is baseless, that is entirely fine.
Do you need a source on that claim as well?
Granted, the sample size is low, but it doesn't look likely the rest of the gang would be any different.
Go gaslight somewhere else.
And the same half of the population do not trust anything what npr.org says.
Understanding the above dynamic is key to grasping the current state of discourse in the U.S.
[1] https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?Docum...
And they absolutely should be resisted with this deadline in mind...
Really feels like the fox is already in the coop.
Not only will Musk be able to tap into it for years but foreign governments.
I still don’t think this notion holds up. Which branch are they under, who do they report to?
> after they started detecting suspicious log-in attempts from an IP address in Russia
Why would real Russian hackers not do anything to obscure their ip? Also if you have ever run a public server you have gotten such requests from Russia.
This appears to be in the article to mislead technical readers and prey on russia anxiety.
> I still don’t think this notion holds up.
What notion doesn't hold up? That a federal agency can be small & independent?
> Which branch are they under, who do they report to?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board
> The NLRB is governed by a five-person board and a general counsel, all of whom are appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate. Board members are appointed for five-year terms and the general counsel is appointed for a four-year term. The general counsel acts as a prosecutor and the board acts as an appellate quasi-judicial body from decisions of 36 administrative law judges, as of November 2023.[4] The NLRB is headquartered at 1015 Half St. SE, Washington, D.C., and it has over 30 regional, sub-regional, and residential offices throughout the United States.
> Why would real Russian hackers not do anything to obscure their ip?
Why would the fox bother hiding the hole someone dug for it under the henhouse?
I'm a strong proponent of small government and don't know enough about the NLRB to say if I would find them useful, but that is well within the range of a small federal department today.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/n...
Yes. They are either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branch.
And before you send more Wikipedia links, be aware there is a long history and chain of Supreme Court cases about this question.
> Why would the fox bother hiding the hole someone dug for it under the henhouse?
Still spreading the Russian asset conspiracy theory? Why wouldn’t they want to hide their crimes from future enemies?
The current court has not, yet, overturned that precedent. There is lots of reason to believe they will, in an extremely contentious ruling. But for now they haven’t.
We are going to find out one way or another though because this admin is pushing hard up against the question.
Of course it’s also pushing hard up on the question of if the courts can constrain it at all so the grade school understanding of separation of powers is real.
That’s not what independent means here.
Most independent agencies are part of the executive branch (some are part of the legislative and judiciary but they are the exception).
They are independent because congress gave the president limited power in their ability to dismiss the agency head and its members. These agencies have some regulatory authority which Congress has vested them on purpose.
You might argue under the unitary executive theory of law that these agencies are actually under the control of the president and the current Supreme Court (for what it’s worth) might even agree with you.
I might argue that it’s a complete travestissement of the constitution spirit and intent pushed forward by people who wish to dismantle the American republic and replace it by an authoritarian regime. But that’s on me.
My only claim is that is false and misleading.
If something smells like shit everywhere you go, it's not a conspiracy to suggest checking the bottom of your shoe.
And the concern probably isn't Russian hackers, it's American hackers spoofing their IP address. Also you are ignoring that DOGE made the server public when it wasn't supposed to be.
The question of whether the president is violating congresses power by downsizing or neutering an agency they have created is something democrats should pursue.
But no - there are no people outside the org chart. That’s just dysfunctional, no man can serve two masters, etc.
If it were true than congress can create agencies for themselves with more power than is granted them in the constitution.
More generally, nobody in the executive branch serves any master. They serve the law and are legally obligated to refuse and report illegal orders. The idea that they serve Master Donald Trump (or Vizier Elon Musk), and that illegal orders must be enforced because it is Trump's will, is precisely why Kilmar Abrego Garcia was illegally deported and why Trump is musing about doing the same thing to US citizens.
I guess we will wait and see.
This entire article appears to be speculation about data they MAY have taken with no evidence besides large file size that they are misusing something.
The discussion with the “whistle blower” and other experts is only about how serious it would be IF they misused it.
Am I reading it wrong?
This is just on top of all the other things. happened.
"The small, independent federal agency investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It stores reams of potentially sensitive data, from confidential information about employees who want to form unions to proprietary business information."
"But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending."
And because DOGE deleted the access records and logs, we cannot prove it either way. That is pretty suspicious.
> From what he could see, the data leaving, almost all text files, added up to around 10 gigabytes — or the equivalent of a full stack of encyclopedias if someone printed them, he explained. It's a sizable chunk of the total data in the NLRB system, though the agency itself hosts over 10 terabytes in historical data. It's unclear which files were copied and removed or whether they were consolidated and compressed, which could mean even more data was exfiltrated.
> Berulis says someone appeared to be doing something called DNS tunneling to prevent the data exfiltration from being detected. He came to that conclusion, outlined in his disclosure, after he saw a traffic spike in DNS requests parallel to the data being exfiltrated, a spike 1,000 times the normal number of requests.
> And Berulis noticed that an unknown user had exported a "user roster," a file with contact information for outside lawyers who have worked with the NLRB.
And more if you actually read the article. About a third of it is about the data that was taken.
- Spoliation of evidence - Intentionally destroying or concealing evidence can lead to legal sanctions and adverse inferences.
- Consciousness of guilt - Actions taken to cover tracks (deleting logs, hiding records) are often admissible to show awareness of wrongdoing.
- Obstruction of justice - Deliberately impeding an investigation by destroying evidence is itself a crime in many jurisdictions.
> Meanwhile, his attempts to raise concerns internally within the NLRB preceded someone "physically taping a threatening note" to his door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone, according to a cover letter attached to his disclosure filed by his attorney, Andrew Bakaj of the nonprofit Whistleblower Aid.
I'm so sick of the endless attempts to downplay or misdirect on the outrageous things Republicans/Trump/DOGE happening everyday.
If a Democratic admin were to do this they would be howling and rightly so. Trump and the GOP are turning the federal government into an authoritarian mob state.
Everyone should be outraged - even if it's for only the fact that you yourself may be a target of this or future administrations as it becomes normal practice.
As a Canadian I am already scared of visiting the US. I've re-posted UNRWA, Unicef, MSF and WFP criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza on social media. I could very well be viewed as being a someone who is undermining US foreign policy goals and either detained, deported or at best denied entry to the US.
https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-to-begin-sc...
> Whistleblower is a journalist word used to establish the good guy in a story.
It's not a journalist word, there is an official whistleblowing process to Congress and OIG the mentioned employee went through.
But you would either have needed to have read and understood the article you're commenting on or not be commenting in bad-faith.
Based on your comments, you're not reading the article at all.
The fact that someone tried to intimidate the whisteblower by posting threatening and stalking messages on his door shows there is something not above board here.
"This entire article appears to be speculation about data they MAY have taken with no evidence besides large file size that they are misusing something ...[and] is only about how serious it would be IF they misused it."
This paragraph makes it clear it's not just about misusing data and large file sizes.
> Those forensic digital records are important for record-keeping requirements and they allow for troubleshooting, but they also allow experts to investigate potential breaches, sometimes even tracing the attacker's path back to the vulnerability that let them inside a network.
Let's be clear:
> Those engineers were also concerned by DOGE staffers' insistence that their activities not be logged, allowing them to probe the NLRB's systems and discover information about potential security flaws or vulnerabilities without being detected.
Neither of these have to do with "large file size" or misusing data.
"Am I reading it wrong?"
Yes. Now, before you go moving goal posts, you made claims, and I've debunked those claims with quotes you said you needed. Because clearly the article is ALSO talking about these other things as problematic as well, so it's not "the entire article". (Also, the "entire article appears"? Appears? Just read it, it talks about numerous things, and is very clear on the different elements it's talking about.)
This isn't the only stuff mentioned, so be careful about claiming "oh, I just missed that" or some such because there are other things that can be referenced, such as the massive amount of text spent on the whistleblower issues and the threats made to them.
And before you talk about this just being "speculation," that's why we have the process we have, so people can make claims that can then be investigated. And that's what's being stopped.
Finally, "no evidence besides large file size" is also not true.
"Am I reading it wrong?"
As someone said, it's more likely you didn't even read it.
No. They are simply regurgitating an intended use of logging systems - allowing us the reader to conclude that DOGE is violating the intent.
> Appears? Just read it, it talks about numerous things, and is very clear on the different elements it's talking about
It’s not clear at all. The article mixed all kinds of information intending to a suggest a narrative without making claims.
Example 1:
> NPR spoke to over 30 sources across the government, the private sector, the labor movement, cybersecurity and law enforcement who spoke to their own concerns about
So they talked to 30 white collar friends and asked them what they think about doge? This is not information.
Example 2:
> "I can't attest to what their end goal was or what they're doing with the data," said the whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, in an interview with NPR. "But I can tell you that the bits of the puzzle that I can quantify are scary. ... This is a very bad picture we're looking at."
Wait a minute - Tim the spokesmen goes on to deny the event happened. That means Daniel is responding to a journalist question about why DOGE MIGHT want data and the worst outcome. Who knows what was said in the ellipsis.
If you think this is quality journalism it’s because it’s telling you a message you want to hear that conforms to your personal narrative.
Technically, maybe you can squint and find small pieces that are more efficient but in the grand scheme of things they goal doesn't seem to be a smaller government.
Reducing headcount reduces labor costs and can be a form of financial efficiency. Reducing headcount also usually reduces the sheer number of people involved in any project, much like a small startup can move drastically quicker than a large, established org.
That said, there goal here doesn't seem to be clear as to what is being made efficient and they definitely aren't reducing the budget or size of government (outside of literal headcount, most people complain instead of red tape and regulations).
Their real goal is more likely a combination of grift and settling grudges.
Edit - typos
> And Berulis noticed that an unknown user had exported a "user roster," a file with contact information for outside lawyers who have worked with the NLRB.
Possibly looking for lawyers for Trump to target with EOs or blackmail.
First the "average" american is softly but ideologically committed to liberalism¹ & democracy as fundamental values. From that perspective the mind kind of recoils from accepting this. If this is really what's happening, what does civic obligation demand of me? How does that reconcile with my inability to keep my family safe in the face of a motivated & powerful state that wishes to harm me through them? Easier to believe this isn't what is happening, I don't need to take action yet. A powerful example of motivated reasoning.
Second a significant part of the userbase here, as with the general population, supports some or all of these actions. Simple as.
¹ Like in the traditional sense, ie "a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law" from wikipedia.
Have they targeted any single criminal yet? Because they have sent two planes of people here to Brazil and nobody there was wanted by either country.
Also, Brazil has a list of wanted criminals at Interpol with known addresses in Florida that they aren't arresting.
This was just a test, and it was successful. They can now disappear and deport anyone they want with no repercussions whatsoever. The GOP is a criminal organization and their followers share the responsibility of what happens next.
It was extra ridiculous/insulting/terrifying to see the heads of both countries in the same room saying that there was nothing they could do about the situation.
It's too soon to say it's "successful": SCOTUS was 9-0 against and that was still only a few days ago, so far from being a success it's now turning into a constitutional crisis... assuming the administration doesn't fold, or flip-flop, or some combination of the two - which we've already seen plenty of[1].
----------
[1] the seemingly arbitrary and capricious tariff changes announced almost every day ever since the-day-after-April-fools-day.
Now, how's that working out so far?
That said, there are plenty of examples of progressive forces arming themselves. The Black Panthers are a good example. Without their armed militancy I think the US government would have been a lot less likely to capitulate to the demands of the peaceful civil rights activists.
The people with guns support these measures.
Now, imagine if those people had gotten their way, and how much easier it would be for the administration to do some of the things people claim it wants to do (e.g. gulags).
*Broad generalization
Given that none of the people with firearms have done a damn thing to stop this and how many of them even voted for Trump and support his policies, because American gun and militia culture has been infested with Nazis since forever, I don't see how it could possibly have been any easier. There has been and continues to be no resistance to Trump of any significance. When he does open up the gulags for real, it's going to be America's armed patriot militias who round people up for the regime.
Probably more then one.
The administration's position is that this man was an illegal alien and that the stay order he had was illegal because he was a gang member. He's an el salvadorian citizen, subject to the laws of el salvador.
Mr Garcia does not have a criminal record, but he was ordered to be deported years ago. He was able to get a temporary reprieve from this by hiring lawyers and working through the legal process, but he did this by almost certainly committing perjury by claiming there were criminal gangs who would kill him if he returned to El Salvador. If you believe the filings in immigration appeals you would have to believe that 99% of the people in the world are being personally pursued by criminal gangs. Perhaps you believe this but I don't find it to be credible. Regardless, whether the legal process is effective doesn't matter here, it IS the legal process and must be followed. My point is the fact Mr Garcia was deported is not itself the issue, it's that it was done in a way that ignores due process and the rule of law. Legally Mr Garcia should be deported, he was only allowed to stay temporarily until he is not "at risk for his life" if he were deported, but the legal process must be respected.
SCOTUS did not command anyone be brought back. They declined to issue an emergency decision blocking an order to 'facilitate' his return, but specifically sent back to the lower court and took issue with the order to 'effectuate' his return. So they are not commanding the government to bring him back, rather they are commanding the government to not prevent his return. Yes this is tedious but reality is often tedious.
> They can now disappear and deport anyone they want
I think you have not made any case that it is valid to assume that we would go from "one person who has already been ordered for deportation by a federal court" who was very publicly deported to "anyone they want" and "disappear".
I basically agree with your sentiment inaccuracy and hyperbole doesn't benefit anyone.
I'm assuming the response to this is going to be along the lines of 'oh this doesnt prove he was innocent, they say he was a member of ms-13 etc etc etc' because evidently innocent until proven guilty (which they provided no proof of) isn't a thing anymore
Try actually reading the article next time. Again, the burden of proof here should be falling on PROVING he is a member of ms-13, not proving he isn't. You are obviously arguing this in bad faith.
[1]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abrego-garcia-and-ms-13...
The removal being in error does not make him innocent.
> Although the asylum claim proved to be time-barred—aliens are required to bring such claims within a year of entering the country—in October 2019 Judge Jones did grant his request for “withholding of removal” based on his “well-founded” fear of persecution by Barrio 18. The government did not appeal, so Jones’s ruling is now final.
> The removal being in error does not make him innocent.
Innocent is the default. That's a fundamental part of how our legal system works. The government must prove you guilty.
Guess we better send you to CECOT. Have fun with your 0.6m^2 of living space. Too bad you weren’t innocent.
Edit; see below for details
[1]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abrego-garcia-and-ms-13...
I've heard the legal status mentioned by an online-person-who-should-know-better. I'll let them know.
They can deport you (if they find a willing third party nation), as it's not a path to permanent resident status, but until they do so, you're allowed to reside and work.
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/fil...
> As in the case of asylum, a person who is granted withholding of removal is protected from being returned to his or her home country and receives the right to remain in the United States and work legally. But at the end of the court process, an immigration judge enters a deportation order and then tells the government they cannot execute that order. That is, the “removal” to a person’s home country is “withheld.” However, the government is still allowed to deport that person to a different country if the other country agrees to accept them.
> Withholding of removal provides a form of protection that is less certain than asylum, leaving its recipients in a sort of limbo. A person who is granted withholding of removal may never leave the United States without executing that removal order, cannot petition to bring family members to the United States, and does not gain a path to citizenship. And unlike asylum, when a family seeks withholding of removal together a judge may grant protection to the parent while denying it to the children, leading to family separation.
And that does make the deportation erroneous, that does not make him innocent.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/14/abrego-garci...
[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-meet-with-el-salvador...
It is one of the biggest news stories in the last month, and various articles (at least 3 that I can think of) have been here on HN. It's trivially searchable. Asking for a citation is almost certainly bad faith.
>I checked the first two results and not one of them said the man was innocent
It's pretty obscure, but there's this thing called "innocent until proven guilty". The man never had his time in court. The US admitted it was a mistake. What are you looking for? Just being contrarian for the sake of it?
>the US government had every right to deport him,
No.
These are all from that article. Special attention to "his removal was illegal".
>Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal record in the United States or anywhere else
>the government has conceded that it wrongfully removed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from the United States
>his removal was illegal because an immigration judge had granted him “withholding of removal”
>Jones’s 2019 ruling, barring Abrego Garcia’s removal
The Supreme Court has even stepped in, which I'm sure you're aware despite pretending not to be:
>On April 7, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a per curiam order, with no recorded dissents, requiring the government to “facilitate [Abrego Garcia’s] return”
And, despite any and all of that! There was no due process. Which, "illegal" or "legal", everyone is supposed to get a due process. If you remove due process for the people you don't like, someone else just needs to claim you're in that group and now you don't get due process! It's like Step 1 of authoritarianism.
Which, since you've not posted anything proving your innocence despite other commenters asking for it, perhaps we should remove your rights to due process.
Can you cite anything showing him having been convicted of something?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence
You probably were taught this in elementary school.
If you think that's not enough, you're probably not innocent either... unless you have a way to prove that no charge exists against you in any jurisdiction in the world. Do you get why people assume innocence here now?
[1]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abrego-garcia-and-ms-13...
You would think this administration would jump at the opportunity of showing the media any proof that Abrego Garcia was a member of any gang, no matter how circumstantial or weak the proof is. But I've yet to see any of it.
[1]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abrego-garcia-and-ms-13...
Also, other users showed that his deportation was suspended as he had been threatened by the gang members you allege he's a member of.
These are a bunch of 20-something tech bro ego cases convinced of their crusade to remake government along libertarian axes they learned from Reddit/4chan/HN. These are simply not people motivated out of a genuine desire to improve the public good. And they've been given essentially unsupervised access to some outrageously tempting levers.
Also it is concerning that the largest amount from an individual contract saved is a cancelled deportation facility contract. Seems at odds with the Administration’s goals to ramp up mass deportation but cancel the contract for building a holding facility for unaccompanied minors.
My suggestion would be if the goal is to eliminate debt we would need to target social security reform such as raising the retirement ages and eliminating the cap on the payroll tax. Additionally, but far less realistic would be implementing a Land Value Tax. Not cancel random contracts that amount to a tiny fraction of the budget and propose massive tax cuts like the current administration seems to be doing.
Nor does the propoganda define "waste", if one looks at the actual cuts, it seems to be focused on "things Herr M. doesn't like". which is not a good definition of "waste".
The 8 billion saving that turned out to be a 8 million saving?
https://youtu.be/lG9pxvpGY-Q?si=cii2iggD-9hAj0ms&t=900
I've timestamped the above video to where it mentions the Clinton / Gore bit, but the whole video is enlightening.
They also love to throw around the word “fraud” while bringing no charges. Despite the DOJ being in Trump’s control. Same pattern as other lies (“rampant voter fraud! We have proof” ok so when you’re in change you’ll prosecute, right? You should! That’s bad if true! I mean I’ve looked at your proof and it doesn’t appear true, but maybe you have more proof you haven’t shown! “Uhhh… [smoke bomb]”)
Plus, we have the GAO and CBO. Trump won’t want to listen to them because they’ll say “our #1 problem is we keep cutting taxes”, and “there’s not much waste to be eliminated cutting government workers”, because that’s true at this point, but they exist. It’s not like nobody’s been looking at these kinds of things. That’s just bullshit.
What they got was a pocket-lining idiot, and genuinely one of the most morally bankrupt people I've ever known of as his tech right-hand man. Musk is a moral imbecile, a 13-year old incel trapped in the body of an overweight mid-50s mess. Yes, he's been involved in some great things (SpaceX and Tesla), but he thinks that translates into a god-like ability to do anything and that he's right about everything.
These numbers don't even stand up to casual scrutiny. And I'm from the UK so it doesn't really directly affect me (although the orange idiot's shenanigans have done so to a small degree). But if you really believe this site, you're divorced from reality, and maybe drinking the same kool-aid that the tech muppets who are on DOGE are.
The worst is that the effects of this shaving off will only be felt over time, when National Parks start crumbling, when ATCs start quitting, the government machine of the USA has been eroded, inevitably it will fall into a landslide.
Second, you have to look at the cost of their actions. They’ve disrupted the functioning of the entire federal government and doing in a very haphazard manner. That means that a lot of current spending is wasted by DOGE _and_ that the business of the government isn’t getting done. For example, whether or not you think the U.S. should engage in foreign aid, under DOGE they paid money to send people to help in Myanmar only to lay them off after they arrived on site, squandering all possible value. That story is being repeated all over the country right now and in many cases the loses are permanent: if they choose to waste payroll having people come back to an office where they can’t work, the job isn’t getting done and there’s no way to recover the wasted payroll. As they keep losing lawsuits, it’s also likely that the amounts cut will be exceeded by the cost of settlements when they breach contracts or fail to provide a service required by statute.
One really big area is tax collection: the IRS is already estimating revenue reductions on the order of half a billion dollars, and since they’ve been sacking a lot of the law enforcement for businesses and high-net wealth individuals, that will get worse as people feel confident cheating more aggressively.
Lastly, you have to look at the economy. Estimated have each federal job supporting 2-3 other jobs, and federal spending drives the economy in many parts of the country. They’ve already cut growth of the entire economy into the negative (from +2.5% in January to -2-3% now - see https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow) and a lot of that is driven by federal cuts.
And it will increase the debt significantly?
All of that while DOGE, some random dudes without any understanding how things work, stop things which are globally agreed on (global aid) or just not even worth mentioning in the grand schem?
But hey if you prefer to defend DOGE ssaving 160 Billion while the tax cut for the rich adds Trillions to debt, yeah do a happy dance. Be proud. Or whatever your comment is trying to do.
Funny that IRS also gets defunded. But hey taxes right? :D
This is on purpose. Trump has been slowly pushing the Overton window. It seems everything is fair game and US citizens are largely apathetic, scared or favorable to Trump's action.
US Citizens aren't apathetic. Our representatives on the other hand...
Is Abrego Garcia not real?
Though I'd argue both uses are acceptable in common use discussion since even if we know where he is since he's going to be incarcerated indefinitely with no due process, no access to lawyers, no civil rights. How long could he be dead without anyone knowing? Literally indefinitely?
Disappearing has been consistently used to refer to illegal and inconspicuous detention since WWII. The person was there and now they are not. There is no arrest record. There are no lawyers. There is certainly no case record where government officials are being questioned [1]. They may be detained, dead or on holiday. The ambiguity, which permits bystanders to assume normality, is the terrifying key.
Diluting the term, particularly on this precipice, is incredibly dangerous.
> How long could he be dead without anyone knowing?
Going off sworn statements to courts (again, something victims of disappearance do not get), a few hours.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/12/abrego-garcia-el-sa...
It's already diluted, you've already lost the battle, but I neither believe it is dangerous nor do I believe it improper.
What I think is dangerous is this game of semantic precision you're playing where we lose the forest from the trees. I think we should be frightened of and wringing our hands about is not a dictionary definition, it's what we're literally seeing: never mind we know where they are at, we know that right now many are not being given due process and there are active attempts to subvert any attempts at them (i.e., rapidly moving to a more friendly district in LA, putting on planes faster than lawyers can respond).
If someone got black bagged and flown to a CIA black site in Yemen, would you "Well, actually" me if I said they'd been disappeared just because we know they're in a Yemen black site? Maybe you would, and I'd roll my eyes then too.
> Going off sworn statements to courts (again, something victims of disappearance do not get), a few hours.
The same courts whose authority is either being actively challenged AND actively ignored by the Executive branch, including so far in this exact case? The executive branch who has punished its DOJ lawyers for being candid with judges? The executive branch who fully controls the relationship with the government housing the detainment facility and who is the only route to fixing this issue? How many more breaks in normalcy and functioning governance do you need to see before you start doubting their good faith responses, much less effort?
It’s not. The only place you see it being used this way is in a section of social media that blows everything out of proportion.
Where I agree is that the battle may be lost. In the same was “defund the police” (versus better regulate) kneecapped the criminal-justice reform movement, and bee-lining to “genocide” (versus the horrors of war and alleged genocide) hurt the Palestinian cause in America, this sort of premature extrapolation makes this case look unserious. Because if the person who is calling what’s clearly not one a disappearance or concentration camp, why would one bother with habeus corpus?
> If someone got black bagged and flown to a CIA black site in Yemen, would you "Well, actually" me if I said they'd been disappeared just because we know they're in a Yemen black site?
No. That’s disappearance. The CIA doesn’t comment on its renditions, much less argue them in an open court.
> same courts whose authority is either being actively challenged AND actively ignored by the Executive branch, including so far in this exact case?
Challenged, not ignored. From what I can tell the administration is begrudgingly complying with the letter of the judges’ (and justices’) orders [1].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego...
> No. That’s disappearance. The CIA doesn’t comment on its renditions, much less argue them in an open court.
You didn't engage with the hypothetical and changed the situation since it's not representative of how things work today. One year ago, the current situation would have been similarly described. I don't think it was an unfair thought exercise given the circumstances.
> Challenged, not ignored. From what I can tell the administration is begrudgingly complying with the letter of the judges’ (and justices’) orders
I guess we'll see. I think we just fundamentally disagree here. I think a smart administrative state would disappear people just like this, it feels like an evolution of KGB tactics that adds some documentation, but the outcome is precisely the same.
That this is not obvious to you is a clear indication of the fact that this isn’t something you personally worry about.
Btw. there is NO reason why they couldn't do all of that in a sincere way. Trump was voted in for 4 years.