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.
atkailash 2 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
AIPedant 43 minutes 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 19 minutes ago [-]
This is exactly what I expect from this administration. Mob tactics. Take the silver or get the lead.
pnutjam 21 minutes 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.
flanked-evergl 4 minutes ago [-]
cite?
softwaredoug 5 minutes 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...
dboreham 7 minutes ago [-]
Are we great again yet?
9283409232 7 minutes 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.
soco 57 minutes 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 35 minutes ago [-]
Nothing they are doing is related to government efficiency. You can't really put too much faith in names.
croes 42 minutes ago [-]
How is firing people helping government efficiency?
alistairSH 6 minutes ago [-]
Nothing about DOGE or the Trump administration is about efficiency. It's just a label they use to con gullible voters.
There real goal is more likely a combination of grift and settling grudges.
lesuorac 38 minutes ago [-]
Log storage is expensive.
actionfromafar 54 minutes ago [-]
To more efficiently rout trouble-makers and unions.
delusional 31 minutes 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
giraffe_lady 58 minutes 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.
actionfromafar 55 minutes 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.
thrance 53 minutes 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 44 minutes 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 21 minutes 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.
DaiPlusPlus 35 minutes 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.
flanked-evergl 3 minutes 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.
Cite?
avhception 34 minutes 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?
watwut 26 minutes ago [-]
No. It was what peoppe who want to use guns to force own autocracy say.
All the shade thrown at DOGE and Musk ignores (and serves) Congress whose job it is (and was) to have found and fixed this waste. Want to criticize DOGE? Great, have at it; but in the meantime this is the first substantive reform of USGOV spending in modern times - at a time when the Country's spending and debt are have reached existentially dangerous levels. Present a realistic alternative that has a prayer of working with your criticism. Perfection is the enemy of our survival as a nation.
kemotep 22 minutes 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.
BLKNSLVR 10 minutes ago [-]
Clinton / Gore did it, properly, well though out, effectively, in the mid-late 90's. I'm not sure if you'd consider that "modern times" though.
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".
ipython 10 minutes 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.
djaychela 4 minutes 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.
Peritract 20 minutes ago [-]
Do you have a more independent/reliable source?
Sonnigeszeug 9 minutes 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
cedws 9 minutes ago [-]
DOGE results according to DOGE. We all know what kind of track record Elon Musk has as a bullshitter.
hypeatei 18 minutes 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.
Rendered at 12:55:13 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
> 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.
And they absolutely should be resisted with this deadline in mind...
There real goal is more likely a combination of grift and settling grudges.
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.
Cite?
Now, how's that working out so far?
The people with guns support these measures.
Probably more then one.
All the shade thrown at DOGE and Musk ignores (and serves) Congress whose job it is (and was) to have found and fixed this waste. Want to criticize DOGE? Great, have at it; but in the meantime this is the first substantive reform of USGOV spending in modern times - at a time when the Country's spending and debt are have reached existentially dangerous levels. Present a realistic alternative that has a prayer of working with your criticism. Perfection is the enemy of our survival as a nation.
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.
https://youtu.be/lG9pxvpGY-Q?si=cii2iggD-9hAj0ms&t=900
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".
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.
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