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Comment by cdme | Hacker News Reader

Elon and his inexperienced cronies are the last people who should be trusted with any government access. They don’t even have clearance.

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Clearance could be granted on a whim by POTUS, as far as I can tell, so that has no leg to stand on. The biggest threat would be that one of the DOGE employees is a foreign actor. Hope they did some vetting...

Does Elon qualify as a foreign actor? He’s certainly malign.

He's an illegal immigrant from South Africa. I don't know the diplomatic status of the USA with South Africa, but the current party in power would certainly not agree to the idea that illegal immigrants should be given total control of the Treasury.

It remains a matter of import. It is both true that they don't have clearance and true that in a more functional environment that they would not have earned it.

>Clearance could be granted on a whim by POTUS

He can' (but shouldn't). But there's no word that was granted to Musk. Since, he didn't name them. He probably doesn't though, because he should not have been stopped at USAID with the right credentials. Unless...

>Hope they did some vetting...

we both know he didn't. If he does have clearance, his interns definitely don't. Hence the kerfluffle at USAID.

Elon has produces technology that can be used for weapons of war. He and space x employees often have TS clearance.

You misunderstand how clearance works. Any one can get "read-on" to anything with the proper authorities giving them access.

It is an administrative step. It might undergo review but access does not need to be prevent until the review happens. It is all about who is granting the access.

The commander in chief has considerable authority to provide access.

No one needs a standing clearance. Anyone can be read into any program by someone of sufficient authority on an ad hoc basis.

There seem to be a lot of misconceptions flying around about what "government access" entails.

This was not the case when I worked in the Federal government. There were different levels and kinds of clearances and while it was true that you could work with less sensitive stuff while the background check process worked its way through, you couldn't go into and view anything elevated w/o the right clearance, or even be in the room pretty much.

Did you often encountered anyone on a POTUS ad hoc mission while being there? There will be background checks maybe, but the winner takes it all.

This has always been the case, though you generally need to be a US citizen as a practical matter. Whether or not you are exposed to it likely depends on which part of the government and who you are. The common case is when they need the help of outside subject matter experts.

For the sake of timeliness and being able to move quickly, some people in government are authorized to make a judgment about the risk/benefit tradeoff when someone doesn't have an active clearance. It isn't a case of waiting for a background check process, you don't even need to apply. Some organizations will do an informal check of their own in the background if they don't already know who you are. Sure, they would prefer if you already had formal clearance, but it isn't strictly necessary.

I could see many people with this abstract concept of a system that governs itself with it's own rules and policies, not quite understanding that it's all customary.

It's like people thinking that the President can't declassify a document or make foreign policy decisions without the NSC's advice or consent.

If they don't have clearance aren't they committing a number of offences under various acts of national security and computer misuse and thus liable for arrest?

Yes. But who is going to arrest them and charge them?

Yes, but the GOP senate and house members are unwavering sycophants. The Supreme Court has also been stacked.

It’s a coup many years in the making and we all watched as it happened. The folks behind project 2025 have been plotting this for years and years.

>If they don't have clearance aren't they committing a number of offences under various acts of national security and computer misuse and thus liable for arrest?

Arrested by who? The executive branch who ordered his actions? Americans voted for this, and now we have to live with it.

No, the judicial branch which is supposed to enforce the law regardless of who was voted for…

Yknow… the branch that’s supposed to check the power of the executive branch…

The Justice Department, including the FBI and federal prosecutors, are run by appointees of the president.

The president can replace them.

>No, the judicial branch which is supposed to enforce the law regardless of who was voted for…

The judiciary has zero enforcement power. They make the laws which the executive is meant to enforce. If the executive fails to enforce a law, congress can impeach. That's not happening.

That’s not how it works.

The executive branch runs the country.

The legislative branch makes the laws.

The judicial branch enforces them…

The legislative branch makes the laws. The Judicial branch judges whether laws were broken. The executive branch has the power to enforce laws (or to not enforce them, as they see fit).

The current executive branch will not enforce laws against itself, and nobody else is legally allowed to enforce the laws, so all the courts & congress can do is write strongly worded letters.

You're almost right. The thing is that Congress absolutely has the power to impeach the president and strip them of all legal office. Of course, most of Congress is perfectly happy with what's going on, so this won't happen.

Those are just...guidelines.

I'm afraid you let that ship sail. You now have a king and a court with untrammeled power - good luck when a successor needs to be found.

Seems like we've jumped into the wayback machine and set a course to a year before 1215...

The judicial branch can't prosecute, that's what the executive branch does, and it's the executive branch that's doing these things. The legislative branch has the power to keep the executive branch in check, but they're not exercising that power - which I'm saying is bordering on criminal. Obviously, the executive branch is unlikely to prosecute the legislative branch for not taking action against the executive branch. Our constitution has the implicit assumption that all three branches wouldn't be in cahoots with one another, and should they be, the electorate was expected to have enough sense to vote out the legislators and replace them with ones that would keep the executive in check. The million dollar question is how much pain and destruction will be endured until that happens?

4 years of it, if I remember correctly

Two years - Congress is replaced every two years. 1/3 of the Senate is replaced every two years. Given that they've only been in office for two weeks, two years seems like a long way off.

House not Congress. Elected not replaced. It is unlikely enough senators will be replaced in 2026.

Arrests don’t need prosecutors involved unless they need a warrant.

Arrests need warrants. And if you're thinking about the police, that's also part of the executive, mostly. Judges can't do anything unless some other branch of the government asks them to.

> Arrests need warrants.

Arrests need probable cause. They can either be done on a warrant or without a warrant (in the latter case, in the federal system, a complaint must be filed and the arrested person must be brought before a magistrate for a hearing on probable cause within 72 hours after arrest.)

Not even a little bit, do you think a judge gets involved before someone is arrested for a DUI? Or trespassing, simple assault, shoplifting, etc?

No, we did not vote for this. Show me the campaign ad that said Trump was going to give Musk and his gang of losers complete control over the treasury.

If you think that a politicians advertisements are the full picture of what they will do, I have a bridge you may be interested in buying.

That said, DOGE was well announced and widely publicized prior to the election, by Musk and the media. Musk was up on the stage with Trump quite a bit.

Those who did not know this was going to happen are either easily fooled or were paying no attention.

I'm over across the pond - it was pretty obvious to me that Elon was going to take a wrecking ball to the ship of government. if it wasn't clear to you, I'm afraid you can only blame yourself and possibly your diet of information.

Trump said Elon would get to run a new department called "department of government efficiency". if you know what he did at Twitter, you can easily join the dots.

It’s all spelled out in the project 2025 doc that was widely publicized as the game plan.

Also, trump was impeached last time because he tried to shut down funding approved by congress. So, if you’re surprised it’s happening again, I suppose you can’t be helped

Oh, the one that Trump heavily distanced himself from? Project 2025 was something skeptics pointed out as being the game plan, but Trump denied (or agreed, then denied).

You’re saying that like I’m the gullible one but he’s following it to a t so . . ..

So, can you eat crow now, or are you genuinely surprised Donald Trump lied? Again.

Do I really have to explain how much of his 100+ EO's come from Project 2025?

I think a quick view of my comment history would show that I am not a fan of Trump. In fact, I would go so far as to characterize him as "if a wet dog turd were a person". I had zero doubt that 2025 would be a blueprint, just another of his lies.

>Show me the campaign ad that said Trump was going to give Musk and his gang of losers complete control over the treasury.

Let's see: Trump appointed it the day after he won:

https://www.npr.org/2024/11/12/g-s1-33972/trump-elon-musk-vi...

And Musk announced DOGE on September 2024:

https://news.bitcoin.com/elon-musk-agrees-to-head-donald-tru...

So yes, this was not some secret. If you (royal you) trusted that photo in the 2nd link to make america efficient, I have no words.

If we are going to discuss this, we should be clear about the details. "Americans voted for this" is a hot take. Some did. Many did not vote at all. Of those who voted, Trump barely won those votes. It was just enough to get the electoral college votes. Even those who did vote for him did not vote for his current Project 2025-based plan. On the contrary, his campaign denied he was going to do all this.

> On the contrary, his campaign denied he was going to do all this.

People believed the wolf when he said he wasn't going to hurt the sheep.

If you don't vote, you effectively vote for the winner.

When the 49ers lost the 2024 Super Bowl, the second and third string players didn't go around saying they didn't really lose because they never hit the field. No, they lost.

Excellent analogy!

> If you don't vote, you effectively vote for the winner.

Yes, if the Electoral College wasn't a thing.

If you didn't vote in a swing state, I don't even know what to say.

But you'd also be surprised how many non-swings could swing if they had enough non-voters vote.

Trump has been the dominant figure in American politics for almost a decade now. It's quite obvious who he is and what he stands for. And he's more popular now than ever before. That's the reality. Accepting that and planning around it is the first step to countering it. Burying your head in the sand and saying "people don't actually want this!" is unactionable talk.

> Many did not vote at all.

If they didn't vote they voted for the winner. America (including me, because voting wasn't enough) earned this 100%.

> […] and thus liable for arrest?

If these are federal statues they can be pardoned by the President (like the January 6 folks were).

Trump would just pardon them.

While they are absolutely committing crimes, the complicit Trump administration justice department and Republican congress are happy to let it go, at least thus far.

And...it's flagged :-))

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9562917>

I don't think you need clearance for this, so not sure how that is relevant.

I've read in multiple articles that people were placed on leave for trying to require proper clearances from him and his team as obligated to by law, and this article also references how clearances impact the fact that nobody knows what they're actually doing.

As someone who has had to clear an SF86 for a USDS hiring cycle (IRS and DHS systems), I would be shocked if you can get this access without a clearance.

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