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DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts

145 points| contemporary343 | 1 year ago |wsj.com

105 comments

order

strangeloops85|1 year ago

If you're having a team going into every bit of government data, you might want to vet them. Beyond eugenicists and racists, if they're getting anywhere close to SCIFs, make sure they fill out that SF-86 accurately. And maybe even if they're not, have them go through regular clearance procedures.

Yes, it takes time. But right now, DOGE seems like a huge security risk for the USG what with it setting up backdoors everywhere, and with unvetted staff working for it.

ethagnawl|1 year ago

That these concerns are being dismissed as partisan shows how far through the looking glass we truly are. Either _the party of law and order_ doesn't understand how risky this activity is, doesn't care or both -- any of which are _extremely_ troubling. We should also all be sure to keep this in mind next time they're crying crocodile tears about TikTok or DeepSeek.

I just emailed my representative (Mike Lawler) and I suggest everyone who's concerned about this activity and capable of offering compelling insights into why this activity (active data breach) is so concerning do the same. Perhaps they're somehow blissfully unaware of the security implications of these folks accessing data (it's only read-only access, though, so don't worry! /s), copying it to ... wherever?, running it through ChatGPT or tinkering in production on critical Cobol systems is and we can enlighten them.

exceptione|1 year ago

I see your point, but talking about risks after a de-facto heist could easily lead to misunderstandings. This intelligence operation is a done deal.

If concerned people debate future risks instead, the other team has scored an A+.

If you want to mitigate what had happened, you need to bring your own extremely resourced criminals. I really feel sorry for all affected.

kenjackson|1 year ago

What makes you think they weren't vetted and this isn't what they wanted?

JohnTHaller|1 year ago

Also worth noting that he made these posts before Musk hired him. And that they didn't fire him.

ilaksh|1 year ago

My take is that we actually need more efficiency in government, and from a technology standpoint, they might have some good ideas.

I have a very pro-technology worldview. I'm independent leaning left but I thought that Democrats have been extreme, wasteful and untrustworthy in their own ways.

It's very unfortunate that this stuff like efficiency and technology integration is now associated so closely with neo-Nazis. Maybe I just didn't want to believe it. But when Musk did those Hitler salutes, I had to accept a new reality.

I don't think cutting programs or screwing up code is our main worry. The Secretary of Defense is literally an alcoholic neo-Nazi Crusader who talks about almost nothing besides getting rid of affirmative action and how evil Muslims are.

I am scared that they will actually try to deport millions of people, there could be massive detainment camps that become concentration camps. You only need a lack of food and one or two really serious neo-Nazis for that to become a death camp.

I am also afraid that they might trigger WWIII, fully fueled by racial hatred and dehumanization of Chinese people.

I am almost scared to write posts like this because who knows if they will start hunting down people from the internet.

gorbachev|1 year ago

Why do you think they didn't?

DonHopkins|1 year ago

[deleted]

QnfbagsHt|1 year ago

The bigger picture problem is that Musk's grandfather Haldeman was part of the technocracy movement, which wanted to implement the "North American Technate", which includes Canada, Greenland and much of middle America:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement#The_Techn...

The agenda 2025 is eerily similar, including the proposed land grabs and a tech style governance by "elites".

hackermeows|1 year ago

Wonder how Elon is getting the clearance for this , dude smoked weed on camera , isn’t that automatically disqualifying for gov clearance ?

Havoc|1 year ago

They seem to be coloring entirely outside the lines here. Much like trump with his bulk exec order and see what sticks approach

zzzeek|1 year ago

He doesn't have clearance. They march into the offices, demand access, whoever is there says "no", then that person gets fired (placed "on leave") ten minutes later. Rinse and repeat.

alexjplant|1 year ago

While there are guidelines in the form of an unclassified, gov't-hosted desk reference [1] ultimate discretion seems to be left to adjudicators. There are public archives [2] that talk about such decisions made in tricky cases of criminal activity, financial malfeasance, potential blackmail, etc. I've seen at least one where somebody admitted to doing hard drugs while having a clearance and actually got upgraded to a TS (though this was ~10 years ago and I can't find it via search engine).

[1] https://www.dhra.mil/portals/52/documents/perserec/adr_versi...

[2] https://doha.ogc.osd.mil/Industrial-Security-Program/Industr...

dragonwriter|1 year ago

Trump did clearance by fiat for a number of officials who he knew could not pass traditional clearance processes; as President he has that power though President’s generally use the process that has been established rather than doing it ad hoc both because they realize that they are fallible so having proper vetting is substantively good, and because they want to avoid the appearance of personal favoritism/corruption (Trump, very clearly, shares neither of those concerns.)

hindsightbias|1 year ago

“Elez promised that Indian workers in the U.S. on H1Bs visas are “going back don’t worry guys.”

Are these guys in some alt-universe where Musk and Theil are advocating against more H1Bs?

Or maybe they’re were fine with eugenics and racism but weren’t aware of his H1B smacks?

kenjackson|1 year ago

H1Bs are OK, just not from certain countries. I've definitely heard that before from this group.

pyrale|1 year ago

Surprised he resigned. After all, it seems transparent that they’re going for a coup.

croes|1 year ago

Don’t worry Musk will rehire him

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93q625y04wo

> He will be brought back," Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns. "To err is human, to forgive divine."

Just ignore that’s not on him to forgive.

Will be interesting to see how people like to be Chile 2.0

archagon|1 year ago

I wonder why he resigned. Half the administration seems to have ties to white supremacy, if not ouright neo-nazism.

rolandog|1 year ago

Before they got into power

- "They're not that bad, they're just trolling people; they would never say racist things at me... They'll stop once they get into power."

After getting into power:

- "Oh... If only someone had warned me about this!"

acdha|1 year ago

They have tried to walk the line just enough to keep the media unwilling to use precise terminology, and to give voters who aren’t committed Republicans plausible deniability. Remember how Project 2025 was open but Trump kept pretending that he didn’t agree with so many of his former staffers, associates, and donors? That was to allow the people who mostly want tax cuts, the Muslims who have religious opposition to LGBTQ rights, the Jews who are Israel hawks, etc. to tell themselves it was safe to vote for him.

Direct statements approving of wiping Gaza and Israel off the earth or disparaging Indian engineers pierce the veil of self-deception and force lukewarm supporters to acknowledge who they’re backing. It’s the same reason why they’re arguing that Musk threw a “Roman salute” hoping that the median voter doesn’t know as much about the Italian fascist movement.

mindslight|1 year ago

But wait, why? How was he pushed to resign? Isn't one of the core arguments for going after the woke that people should be able to say what they want in their free time, and still keep their jobs in their professional life? And his employer is a group that has a supposed mandate to be going after the woke, so they should be best able to push back against public pressure, right? Perhaps the phenomenon of politics is deeper than merely the woke and can never really be eliminated?

talldayo|1 year ago

The other day, I read a comment on the Wired post stating: "Really, all this article says is that if you are an auditor for the commission appointed by the president, we will make sure that this comes up in an aggressively negative way when somebody who you want to work for googles you. It's pure intimidation, masquerading as journalism."

Well, it seems these young men were chosen for qualities that should make them feel intimidated. It's our moral imperative as Americans to hold these people accountable, criminally accountable if necessary. If these men are promoting racist and un-American sentiments with the intention of not being caught, they are trying to fool the entire nation at once. Clearly that cannot persist.

ilaksh|1 year ago

I think that unfortunately what's been proven with recent developments is that in some way racism is very American.

mhh__|1 year ago

The comment has a point. You should expect it when playing this game, but it's very clear what said game is.

marcusverus|1 year ago

[deleted]

happytoexplain|1 year ago

Wait, are you posting these as evidence that he's not racist...? I'm not following your first line.

talldayo|1 year ago

That's just racism. You can't use the "South Park humor" defense when you're standing on a soapbox yelling it in public.

archagon|1 year ago

Saying things like that in real life would get you socked in the face. "Edge-lord" is just the Gen-Z equivalent of the more traditional "boys will be boys"-to-psychopath pipeline.