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Comment by axus | Hacker News Reader

Government should have access to its own data. Justice and Congress should have the same access for oversight. The only problem I see is personal data about non-government people is being exposed to the entire planet.

They should have developed good security practices first and maybe spent more than a week reviewing a plan, and not having a double standard about their own activities.

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The government already had access to its data, including oversight and regular auditing. This was solely about removing the safeguards so they didn’t have to follow good security practices or have a plan, and given how intensely politicized it has been it’s hard not to think that’s because the plan is not something they’d want to document where the public could see.

As an example, Musk mislead the public with claims about Social Security fraud. None of that was unknown, and in fact the independent inspector general had a much better quality report years ago where they confirmed that the old records did not show signs of fraud and recommended paths for improvement. DOGE made a lot of noise but added nothing but risk.

https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-06-21-51022.pdf

The thing is, Government already had access to its own data. It just was required to follow the law that was put in place by the voted in Legislature to prevent abusive situations that could arise from limitless unrestricted access without oversight. It was there, and even non-government citizens could get access to it by following the procedures; procedures put in place to prevent "selling the farm," voted on by elected officials, with the support of their constituents.

Government is doing a lot of work here. We’re talking about thousands of people, who, other than working for the government, also are humans with their own agenda. Are you okay with just giving all of them access to your most personal data? Even if some of them live right next to you, have a personal grudge, and may be slightly psychotic? No? Well apparently, then, it’s not just as hand-wavy as you claim it to be. The only reasonable thing is granting access to data on a need-to-know basis, with tight access control, audit logging, and anonymisation where not strictly impossible. That would be the reasonable thing if you’re handling data for hundreds of millions of people. It isn’t what’s happening.

It would have been better for the government not to collect all this information in the first place. For decades libertarians have been warning about the scenario we seem to find ourselves in.

Justice doesn't need the same access like Congress, it's enough if they can subpoena relevant data. Even personal data about government people shouldn't be exposed as this opens weakness the be exploited by social engineering.

> Government should have access to its own data.

You think it didn't already have access to its own data? Please explain how it did not.

> Government should have access to its own data. Justice and Congress should have the same access for oversight.

On its face, that’s a reasonable comment. But that’s not what’s happening here. This is not oversight. This is the world’s richest man arbitrarily seizing control of the government’s data. He’s able to do this because he bought the presidency for Trump.

Are you ok with that?

I blame the people who were bought as much as the buyer, and the Citizens United decision for facilitating the buying.

I'm OK with democratic elections and executive appointments. I'm OK with the "read access" part of the control, the "write access" should only go as far as the laws passed by Congress permit.

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