[blandcoffee]

Does anyone else find it odd, that this type of access would typically require training and/or a background check, yet here we are 12 days after this administration was sworn in?

Are there no checks and balances in place? Seems like one side that won the popular vote has taken the entire spectrum of action, regardless if they need to govern for an entire nation.

[blendo]

It appears there are no checks and balances in place. Congress could impeach, or the Supreme Court could enjoin (is that the word?), but I see no prospect of either happening soon.

[b0sk]

Remember that they are all controlled by one party, so everyone is willing to look the other way (and cynically, probably cheerleading it)

[scarab92]

It would help if people could outline exactly what they are concerned about.

As far as I can tell, nothing that that Musk et al is doing is unusual when an organisation changes hands. This is normal for a change of government or a corporate aquisition.

Perhaps there should be certain, limited, aspects of executive decision making that require congressional oversight, but because left weren't decrying the lack of checks and balances previously, they now come across as sore losers, worse, dishonest sore losers who are cloaking their pettiness as concern.

Secondly, the left lost the public support so badly that the republicans control congress now, so even if such oversight existed, it would also be controlled by the republican party.

[locopati]

A person who has not gone through a confirmation process is running an agency not provided for by Congress and not vetted for security clearances which is taking actions that violate employment laws and union protections.

That is what we are concerned about. This violates all kinds of norms, regulations, and laws.

The left did not lose "so badly". They lost a handful of electoral college swing states by small margins. These people do not have a mandate, no matter how much they say they do.

https://federate.social/@mattblaze/113926311776131035

[scarab92]

Trump won the election. The left need to accept that.

He has a mandate to significantly reduce the size of the federal government, and he has the authority to appoint Musk to act in this way.

You can complain about it violating norms all you like, but norms aren’t laws and taking into account the preferences of the left isn’t something Trump is required to do nor is it something the Democrats have done in the past for the right.

As for violating employment laws, there’s no evidence of this. It appears you just threw that in there hoping no one would challenge you on it.

[locopati]

Federal employees are unionized. There are procedures to dismiss employees. They are not following those procedures.

So, no, I didn't just throw that on there.

Even if there weren't, are you so callous and heartless that you can't see how this blow-it-all-up approach is making chaos of people's lives? Is that what you're here for... to make things hard on people?

The Republicans won the election. That doesn't mean trample the entirety of the country to fit their vision. The Democrats have done nothing like this.

Stop defending fascists. It's not a good look.

[scarab92]

> fascists

I'm sure calling them such names makes sense in your echo chambers, but to the overwhelming majority of people this is an inaccurate and inappropriate label.

Calling people things which they are not, does not hurt their reputation, it simply makes your fringe of the political spectrum look immature.

[cmurf]

Trump lost the 2020 election and Trump's kooks didn't accept that. Instead they engaged in violence at the request of Trump, while he was still president, on the basis of Trump's election denialism.

Peaceful transition also isn't the law. It was a norm. Until Trump pissed on it.

Trump ordered the vice president to overturn an election, and when Mike Pence refused that order, Trump sent a mob to have the VPOTUS assassinated.

And then, in possibly something like mass hysteria, they vote for Trump again. Or maybe it's an addiction to depravity, anger and drama. Like drug addiction.

Trump voters voted for a rapist, for president. This how low and desperate they've become. They kicked Mike Pence to the curb - all the boilerplate Republican policies they claim to want, but Pence wasn't good enough. It's pretty clear the right wanted an abusive personality.

Don't expect reasonable people to become docile about that.

[ty6853]

Musk has no authority. He operates only under the pleasure of the authority of the president and the officers of the USDS under which he is a federal employee.

You needn't be an officer to gain access to and analyze payment systems.

[locopati]

Has no authority but is taking authoritorial actions. Right. He's not a federal employee afaik as he hasn't passed any of the requisite checks or been approved by the Senate.

[ty6853]

I do not think you need a confirmation nor a commission to hold office to access payment systems.

[figassis]

Didn’t Trump issue an EO to expedite security clearances for people who were in line 1 day after inauguration? Could they be those people?

[buddavis_]

No. The story I read was for "Interim Top Secret". If you have a clear National Agency Check (arrest and convictions), and do not flag as a drug user / mental case, then you can be given an "Interim Top Secret" while waiting for the clearance adjudication. Does not allow access to SCI, or NATO Cosmic, but does allow access to regular Top Secret. There is also an "Interim Secret". Over 90% of the people with interim clearances are positively adjudicated.

Normal thing. Provided they are using the same criteria for the Interim Clearances.

[dinkumthinkum]

Top Secret is also a fairly common clearance, despite the name it is not a clearance level reserved for highest levels of intelligence or anything like that.

[quantified]

Huh? This isn't a corporation, nothing about corporate change of control applies.

Political, not civil, servants taking over these systems without any oversight is truly brazen. Sounds like you're saying that since there wasn't a prior act of Congress declaring this illegal, it's just whining. Please clarify.

You're right that oversight would be influenced by the party in power. Generally, the inspectors general would be relatively independent but guess what, they all got sacked just a few days ago. And Republican congresspeople behave as if they represent the president, not their constituents. The system functioned with some level of decorum before, but this looks like war.

[figassis]

I think this is a case where it’s becoming clear that some US laws were vague and there always needed to be some specification. I mean, what does checks and balances mean? How do you execute it? By sheer force of will apparently.

[scarab92]

The actions that are being taken by Trump, Musk and co is normal in both governmental and corporate organisations when a change of control occurs.

Oversight in these systems tends to be illusory, because for the executive branch to function it fundamnetally needs to have the authority to make the decisions that are currently being made.

The Democrats have, broadly speaking, not cared much for oversight when they were in power, so suddenly caring about it now that republicans are in power comes across as, and probably is, just them being sore losers.

[jauntywundrkind]

No, the US has been able to have a clean transfer of power without sending in random goons who won't identify themselves & who download key/secure OPM data onto random hard drives & leave with it.

This is all batshit insanity, an assault on democracy.

[scarab92]

They aren't random goons.

They are official government employees / advisors, peforming a task within their remit.

Clearly your framing is driven by ideological hatred, but there's nothing about this that isn't above board.

[nicce]

Didn’t Trump just remove those checks?

Or maybe this is something else: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/trump-temporary-...

[ranger_danger]

> Are there no checks and balances in place?

All it takes for bad people to win, is for good people to do nothing.

[kcplate]

> is for good people to do nothing

Or for good people to run shitty candidates that can’t win the election

[ty6853]

A big purpose of primaries is a sanity check for election suitability. Unfortunately whatever elites shit-canned Biden forgot that they need primaries almost as much as the people do.

[ty6853]

This system is squarely in the hands of the executive. The elected executive handed access to DOGE, as he advertised in his campaign. This is so squarely and fairly a democratic action it defies logic this is even worth taking note of. This is what the people, who the government is beholden to, explicitly asked for. Tyranny would be NOT handing it over.

[locopati]

The Constitution provides for checks&balances. This violates the Appointments Clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2). It is unconstitutional like so many of these executive orders that violate the 1st and 4th Amendments.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appointments_Clause

[ty6853]

I find it hard to believe every employee accessing the system without a congressional appointment is violating the constitution. Perhaps that is the case but I haven't heard a peep from constitutional watchdogs until now. Can you explain why it's suddenly unconstitutional when the US digital service employees access it?

[blandcoffee]

Interesting - I genuinely want to understand your perspective here.

Are you saying following the laws to protect sensitive information is not worth it in this case, because it has been authorized by the party of the day?

[ty6853]

That sounds like a 'why did you beat your wife' kind of question. No comment here has established law was broken, nor did you even cite any specific crime. Genuinely have no idea what red herring you are going on here.

[silverquiet]

Over the last decade or so I've ceased to believe that laws even really exist or that anything matters.