Comment by borgster
2 days ago
The President is the head of the executive branch. If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too.
Why is this hard to accept?
2 days ago
The President is the head of the executive branch. If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too.
Why is this hard to accept?
He is not a monarch. The core principles of a well functioning democracy include that there are multiple, balanced powers and that none of the powers can overrule the other too much. It is cumbersome by design, because the other path leads to dictatorships.
That was the whole basis of your constitution.
Under U.S. constitutional law -meaning the Constitution itself and the binding judicial precedents and the impeachment precedents (mainly from the failed impeachment of Andrew Johnson)- the president is plenipotent within the executive to do things like:
etc., as long as it's all within the executive branch.
The president can also abrogate treaties without the Senate's advice and consent.
Most of the above are not explicitly in the Constitution as such, but are understood to be constitutional law either due to SCOTUS decisions, longstanding and unchallenged practice, or the result of the failed impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
Not only that but also most if not all recent presidents going back decades have done some if not all of the above. That includes Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden.
In other words: there is no innovation here, no judicial controversy. This is all standard fare for any new administration. The only difference is the extent of what Trump is doing in his second term compared to any other recent presidency. The sheer number of EOs, the auditing (which basically hasn't been done recently), and the layoffs (which are rare in DC). And yes, he's goring a lot of oxen -more than other presidents in recent memory-, but they all do that, just not eliciting so much outrage from the opposition.
If the CEO of my ecommerce company had easy, unmonitored access to all our data, we would fail industry audits and not be allowed to take credit card transactions. Sure, they have access if they really need it, but it's logged and monitored, and if you use it too much there will be questions.
It's a joke that any of you assholes are defending this. This does not pass any sniff test.
Stop making excuses.
The president has absolute authority to access to all secrets within the executive branch, and has absolute declassification authority, both statutorily and presumptively constitutionally as a result of a) being the president, b) being able to nominate his cabinet, c) being able to issue executive orders to his executive branch officers and acting officers.
The president therefore has the authority to access every last secret and every last system within the executive branch. No statute can limit this power. The president also has the authority to delegate (to some extent; only the president can issue EOs, but presumably his officers can recommend EOs to him) these powers to his or her officers.
The titular of the U.S. Digital Service (DOGE) is statutorily not subject to Senate confirmation, though considering how Trump's controversial nominees have sailed through Senate confirmation it's easy to suppose that Musk would also likely be confirmed to head the USDS were it an appointment subject to Senate confirmation. Since the president can appoint someone like Elon Musk to head the USDS, and since the president can delegate his clearance and declassification authority to someone like Elon Musk, his doing so does very much "pass [the] sniff test".
Because it isn't the case. For good reason. So it isn't acceptable. Spend some educating yourself about security standards like FedRAMP and build a mental model of things that are or have been true, and the reasons they were made so.
> If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too.
Are you an idiot? Can you point to the last time some foreigner was given access to American's personal data without any oversight?
Elon Musk has Canadian, US, and South-African citizenship
So it’s okay because he’s rich?
Yes, when you're not from this country (a foreigner), you need a citizenship card to reside and work here (or a visa). Thanks for verifying that for me.
1 reply →
Because it's Musk following his own agenda and he apparently isn't the president
Musk is acting with full president support.
Doesn't mean either are acting within the law
> Why is this hard to accept?
Because a lot of people on the other side of the aisle from the current executive said it is bad.
And then they used ad hominem attacks and random slanders to try to shout down anyone who says otherwise.
It's unfortunate.
Most people in the US don't know that there are three branches of government, or if they do, they don't know WHY there are three, and even if they know that, they don't know what each branch's purpose is.
This is absolutely the job of the executive branch.
Perhaps DOGE should have been created by an act of congress, but in reality that's just a formality because the Republicans control Congress right now.
Trump renamed USDS to DOGE via executive order. It's true that it's not an agency, but it was created during the Obama administration.
I'm not sure it'd be better as an agency because there are strict rules and hierarchies around agencies. The way DOGE is operating right now, seemingly, is:
- Agency directors are directed by executive order to work with DOGE and give them access to what they need
- DOGE team members are actually hired as employees of the agencies in which they are operating
- DOGE makes recommendations to agency directors on what things to cut
- Agency directors review recommendations and make cuts
This means that all cuts are being recommended and made within the scope of each individual agency. It is not the case that one agency is telling another what to do, and all decisions are ultimately being made by each agency's director. It simplifies the hierarchy and authority.
Correct. It also sidesteps all questions of legality.
DOGE was created by an act of Congress after Obama first created it by an executive order. Its formal name is United States Digital Service.
It is only the job of the executive because Congress told them so via Acts of Congress. Looking at e.g. the firings of the inspector generals, Congress has put very clear language into its laws on why and when those inspector generals can be removed by their post, yet Trump and his cronies ignored this.
It should not be a formality because while it is true that the Republicans have a slight majority in Congress, the founding fathers never intended this most powerful of the three branches to be run by parties. The power in Congress is split up geographically for this very reason, but the party system, that secured its seats with gerrymandering, is highly toxic for a functioning legislative power in the US. It is disappointing to see Republicans in Congress not restricting the executive orders of the new self-proclaimed King.
The president can fire any executive branch officer at any time for any reason regardless of what any statute says about it.
There are two precedents for this to my knowledge, though there may be more:
> self-proclaimed King
He was clearly trolling. Grammatically that tweet does not parse like himself calling himself a king. For all you know he loves the British king, or some other king, or maybe he was referring to Jesus. But he got what he wanted from that quip: it got reported, along with credit for ending congestion pricing in Manhattan. Why the media still falls for that, I don't know.
So are you saying that the President's office could not get this information, or any information it needed, from government agencies before? Of course it could. doge going in and getting unfettered access to computer systems is not at all the same thing.
Ultimately it's about trust.
And why would you trust Trump or Musk?
It's about whether the president can legally do this.
Somehow Musk has surpassed Trump as a target. Cynically: I think it's because polls show Trump's approval rating at record highs, but Musk's isn't.
As a result, opponents are hyper-focused on Musk's involvement instead of Trump's.
You're right. Though the replies you get will sound like the end of the world.
You'll have to deal with people replying who have been driven literally insane by propaganda.
Money was sent to media agencies (e.g. 9mil Reuters) , to run this massive psyop.
You can't put a band aid on what has been done to them, and they can't critically think their way out of it.