Comment by ThinkBeat
19 hours ago
1. DOGE employees access data they were not supposed to.
This fairly clear.
The story says that DOGE attained access to an account that had huge permissions into what it could see and alter. The person or persons from DOGE may have downloaded 10GB of data. The person may have used this in a manner that is illegal. Or it is illegal to start with. With the understanding that POTUS may or may not be allowed grand such access. (I dont think POTUS can)
2. DOGE employee downloaded code that could be used to use a huge pool of IP addresses, from AWS to bypass forms of throtheling. 3. The code was badly written. 4. The person is a racist
How would a person from DOGE use "unlimited" number of IP adderssess from AWS to hammer and automaticlay screenscape webpage, benefit from it when it came to copying extremly sensetive data from an internal National Labor Relations Board database?
Did 10.000 sessions authenticate to the database at the same time, using AWS UP addresses and scraped the data?
Something is pretty broken if the system with extremly sensetive data is available from external IPs -and- allowing a single account to login 10.0000 times to concurrently scrape data off the interal database?
Of are they saying that this code was adapted to use 10.000/100 IP addresses internal to National Labor Relations Board and scrapes using those?
The automation later noted makes a lot more sense to aid the work.
The author brings up the ip scraping but makes no effort to tie anything together. It's actually really confusing. Were they using this utility to steal the data or are these two just totally unrelated things?
We have no way to know what they were using it for, because as the article details, DOGE works hard to make sure nobody can find out what it's doing or why.
> I dont think POTUS can
What data in a federal agency could the chief executive not have authorization to access?
I am fairly sure it would be a crime for the President to pull up someone's VA health records on a whim, or at least it would be a crime for anyone at the VA to facilitate him doing that.
We can also add to that IRS data. The articles of impeachment against Nixon included the following:
"He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law" (emphasis mine).
There actually are laws regulating the handling of personal data collected by the government and it generally doesn't have a "the president wants to see it" exception.
"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal" - Nixon
I wonder, if he was alive today would he stand by those words?
I would agree with that emphasis. Misusing presidential privilege is always a possible impeachment, if congress cares.
I think that he can access a health or irs record for cause - anything which would not get him impeached.
> What data in a federal agency could the chief executive not have authorization to access?
Personally? For starters, he can't access anything the Legislature's laws say he can't.
The Executive is there to implement the law, and that includes obeying them him/her-self.
A President telling other people to break the law on his behalf by threatening to fire them is also a crime of extortion.
> he can't access anything the Legislature's laws say he can't.
Can the legislature make rules for the president without constitutional amendment?
I am interested- I’ll see if I can find examples.
5 replies →
I think the question is whether employees of an advisory group that is not an actual department of the government are on the list of people to whom can he authorize access to this type of sensitive data.