Comment by hintymad | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hintymad | Hacker News Reader

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> DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation

Could you share you reasons. From what I gather, the EO[1] does a few things to avoid potential law suits:

- It revised the purpose of an existing agency, USDS. The general purpose is not changed: "Modernizing Federal Technology and Software to Maximize Efficiency and Productivity". This avoids the issue of creating a new agency without the approval from Congress.

- It cites cites the sectio 3161 of title 5 of United States Code, to create DOGE as a "Temporary Organization" for only 18 months. This avoids the law suits that the EO creates a new government entity with out the approval of Congress.

- It orders each government agency to hire DOGE teams, each of which includes a lead, a lawyer, an HR, and an engineer. Agency heads should ensure that DOGE agenda is implemented. This is within the authority of an EO.

- The EO voids previous EOs to avoid law suits on future conflicts.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...

The USDS wasn't established by Congress, it was established by Obama via Presidential memoranda and OMB budget request.

Thanks! I knew that Obama created the USDS, but I thought he still needed the support from Congress. Well then, in that case I'm not sure why Trump would rather repurpose the USDS. Maybe it's easier to set up a temporary entity for DOGE that way?

It is in the same way you would assume an existing admin role to perform the highly privileged actions you want to take vs attempting to bootstrap access from scratch.

Does anyone else notice how similar that is in spirit to what a malicious actor would look to do after gaining access to your network?

Or how a malicious actor inside your network would follow exactly this plan to do malicious things without your knowledge...

USDS was already kind of set up the way you'd want to set up DOGE if you were Elon. It was designed for talented people from the tech industry to do "temporary tours" in the government.

Pretty amusing that Obama essentially created a SPAC for Trump and Musk to use to dismantle the civil service.

And a curious question: I was seeking the truth on the qualifier "obvious" and the legality of the EO in general, and I presented my case with references to the actual EO. My reasoning could be very wrong but at least I tried to stick with the discussion of the actual legality of the EO.

What's your reason to flag it and downvote it without counter arguments? Anything that does not agree with your rage is automatically morally bad bad bad?

I believe that the existence of DOGE and the EO is legal. I don't believe that what they are actually doing (according to reports) is legal. I believe they are doing illegal things based upon Musk's own tweets, however, I do actually hope he is just trolling and it's not actually happening as he says it is.

That said, even if it's just trolling, trolling has no place in government. We all deserve better and we need to trust that what is said is the truth.

So what "trolling" are you referring to?

$50 million for condoms in Gaza is a good example.

Has there been any proof to this claim outside of the White House press secretary?

This grant [1]. "SUPPORT SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (SRH) CARE CLOSE TO THE DISPLACED POPULATIONS. [...] Place Of Performance //XGZ GAZA STRIP GAZA STRIP". Though I don't think that it will be used exclusively for condoms, the one paragraph description doesn't give much details about how exactly the 45 million dollars will be spent.

[1] https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_SPRMCO24VC0339_19...

It also shows that zero dollars has been outlaid for the grant over the last 5 months. It's entirely possible that none of the money would have been used by the expiration of the grant.

That said, I wish these were required to be a lot more verbose. I can envision a program with that description I would totally approve of, and I can imagine programs with that description that I wouldn't think are useful. Being more transparent around the programs would help in cases where wild unsubstantiated claims are made.

I dont think “but it hasn’t been outlayed yet” is an appropriate critique of something so fishy.

Whether the funds were used for condom balloons or lifesaving hospital deliveries of babies, the complaint from the masses should be “give us more information for exactly what this money is obligated to accomplish.”

Especially when the federal government is eager send me demands for additional backup and information on money I earned 3 years ago, after it had previously signed off on documentation presented.

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