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Comment by justin66 | Hacker News Reader

They're not pseudonymously posting on Reddit or something, they're working in the federal government. The concept of "doxxing" does not apply.

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When people are creating lists including who their parents are, their parents jobs, etc. it kind of does in my mind. My bad.

In my mind, there are a number of instances online where people (read: men) are acting like entitled princes, and the one thing that gets them to back off is making their families aware of what's going on.

Considering that these six are almost certainly peak internet people, I can't say I entirely disagree with trying to make sure their families know what they're doing. And so those family members know who to blame if data is leaked, potentially like the bank account details stored in the treasury payments system.

Just to make sure I understand what you're saying and the underlying principle and how it might apply. You support internet mobs (and eventually IRL mobs) harassing innocent people who happen to be related to somebody else?

Do you agree with everything your relatives do? Are you willing to be held to the same standard? If you brother/sister/son/father/uncle/nephew/whatever does something I don't like, can I publish your personal information and get an internet mob to call and threaten your employer?

When people can't be legally held accountable, then why are you surprised that there are those trying to hold them accountable via extrajudicial means?

I'm not surprised. In fact, I expected it. Lynching is a long-held tradition in the United States after all. And vigilante Justice is hardly an American invention.

I'm asking if it's what is actually being argued and if people believe that it is right.

By the same logic, it's not hard to get this place: If the sheriff won't hold a black man accountable for whistling at a white woman, then of course the white citizens must take justice into their own hands, right?

I work with HR data and other related information

I take its protection very seriously, and if I had done even a fraction of what these folks have, I would expect at minimum to be fired

This is a gross justification of something you know to be wrong. If all the employees who are currently working at the Treasury had their names leaked you wouldn’t think twice about it being a case of doxxing.

Somehow people feel justified in their condemnation because they don’t know what was happening in the department before and assume more was done than actually was by these DOGE employees. Note that the article has no idea of the extent of work done by each of them, the internal processes at DOGE, or the legality of these events.

At this point it’s just fear mongering with words like “coup” being thrown around and baseless accusations about the halting of payments to essential programs like Medicare, Medicaid, social security, etc. None of which have been verbally stated as a target for termination this term

Let's ignore the ethics of your position just for a second.

How do you think would affairs develop if the policy you defend now continues? Suppose the families of those men are "made aware of their son's actions" (i.e. they are harassed, because that's what's really going to happen).

The administration will make sure that public the has the right to know the name and addresses of the loved ones of opposition politicians and their associates. And, it may come to a surprise to you, but most crazy people with a lot of firearms generally support the administration and ruling party. Those people can harrass families with unprecedented effectiveness. They can also do much worse.

How is what you are suggesting a good idea from a purely tactical standpoint?

That's what reporting on public figures entails, especially when their public actions are legally murky at best. Or are you proposing they're not actually public figures (in which case why do they have access to the systems they do?)

But really, yeah, lets talk about questionable people creating questionable lists......

Dude I responded to old boy saying 'I fear what might happen to these guys' with 'somethings happening'. I didn't stake out a moral position.

Does that include posting their/their parents home addresses? That's what's been happening.

That's terrible, because taking someone's private data without permission and misusing it is wrong.

So the concept of "doxxing" doesn't apply to anyone who works in a government job? We can just publish the private information of any low-level employee?

Access to the Treasury that is normally highly-restricted is the furthest from "low-level employee" that you can get.

We make exceptions for fascists. We have to.

What's the underlying principle here? If you think somebody is a fascist you can attack their family? Do you think there should be any legal process or protection for anybody accused by another random person of being a fascist?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

To maintain a tolerant society, a tolerant society must be specifically intolerant of the intolerant.

Fuck the fascists.

Also we make exceptions for ad hoc procedures untested by the courts and not even evaluated by the appropriate government organ (GSA?).

When you're helping a fascist destroy our government, you've earned everything that happens to you.

By their unprecedented and legally-murky access level, they're far from "low-level employee".

And for the important folks, we make a loud cry about even their birth certificates and birth parents, so why not this?

All sense of decorum has been burned down long ago, and hilariously, it's been burned down by the same people now pretending to complain here.

If we're gonna make it to the other side of all this, it's going to take another Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Roosevelt to restore any of our former dignity. And no, this one's gonna be lucky to have history consider it even a Nixon.

Right. So, the basic principle is: if you think you're doing something valorious and can rationalize the result, you can ruin the lives of whomever you like.

This doesn't seem to be a huge leap from the rationalization for "doxxing" in any other period.

We're still in the "burn it all down" phase, and the problem about "burn it all down" is you get burned too, especially if you're in there looting while the house is on fire.

We haven't yet found the leaders who will be the ones rebuilding. Maybe we have the ones who will be sitting on a charred throne claiming a burned-out husk of a throneroom in their hard-earned kingdom of ash, but not the ones who will rebuild.

So spare me the feigned morality right now, we all know no one's playing by those rules anymore.

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