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There are people in this thread claiming that Wired "doxxed" these engineers working for Musk dismantling things they don't understand; however didn't Musk publ
by eutropia 2y ago
There are people in this thread claiming that Wired "doxxed" these engineers working for Musk dismantling things they don't understand; however didn't Musk publicly mock individual federal employees on his twitter account, drawing the eyes of millions onto random government functionaries for no other reason than to capriciously taunt them about being fired?
I hope people condemning the former also condemn the latter.
- sanderjd 2y agoPeople who work at the highest levels of our government are public figures. It is the job of reporters to report on who they are and what they're up to.
- cgannett 2y agoWell if they are working on those systems I think they count then right?
- sanderjd 2y agoYep, that's what I'm saying. They don't get to take these jobs and then complain about being "doxxed". They are public servants now.
- liontwist 2y agoAny public servant is open season for doxxing? (Teachers, soldiers, IT feds)
- andy_xor_andrew 2y agoEssentially yes, because they work for you and me. Why would you expect that people who serve the public could remain unknown to the public ?
- liontwist 2y agoI actually don’t think 60k workers are public figures to be doxxed. In the same way I do not represent my employer to the media or shareholders.
- sanderjd 2y agoWell, you're wrong. The US has a government of by and for its people. It is not the same as your employer.
- UltraSane 2y agoNo, just the ones violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act like Musk and DOGE employees are doing right now.
- liontwist 2y agoSo if an administrator in a school district allegedly violates policy all their employees are open season? (We are also talking about no trial to determine whether your claims are true)
- UltraSane 2y agoWhat Musk is doing with DOGE is the most unconstitutional power grab any US Citizen has tried is a very long time. The normal rules do not apply anymore.
- liontwist 2y ago[flagged]
- UltraSane 2y agoDo I need to remind you that Elon Musk has gained unauthorized and illegal access to the federal payment system? It is very possible he will be arrested for doing this if a democrat gets elected unless Trump pardons him. But then his US citizenship can be revoked. EDIT: "Wasn’t he authorized by the President, the chief executive?" The President doesn't have the authority to do that.
- epicureanideal 2y agoWasn’t he authorized by the President, the chief executive?
- ModernMech 2y agoIt's an interesting question. The president's powers are supposed to be limited and checked. That was the whole point of the American Revolution. One of the ways the president is limited is that the he can't authorize people to commit crimes. e.g. he couldn't instruct his AG to open an investigation into his political opponent under false pretenses in order to hurt his electoral chances. If the AG were to do that, it would be a crime. So the question isn't whether the president has authorized Musk to do something, but whether or not the president even has the power to do the thing he delegated. And what is the power in question? It's control over spending appropriated by Congress. And that's where separation of powers comes in. Congress is supposed to control the purse strings, and the president is supposed to make sure the money is spent on the priorities of the people, taking care of prosecuting fraud and abuse. The point of giving Congress this power is to give the people a mechanism to set their priorities on how their own money is spent. It shouldn't be the case that one guy comes in and then gets to decide how to spend all our money. But that appears to be what they are trying to do, in claiming that their cuts are all under the guise of reducing fraud and abuse. But really what they're trying to do is do an end-run around Congress. They want all the money, but they don't want to have Congress vote on it, because they don't actually have the votes to implement the agenda they want to, since Congress is so divided. So instead they're just taking the funding they have and allocating it in ways that support only the agenda items they want to see implemented.
- paulgb 2y agoIt’s relevant here that “doxxing” here just means “exposing their names and internet posts”, right? In that case, yes, the OPM already “doxxes” most federal employees, even making their salary data public. It’s seen as a worthwhile tradeoff to give taxpayers transparency into how their money is spent.
- liontwist 2y agoThere is a difference between 5 names in an article and 100k names in a database.
- qingcharles 2y agoThe names of all public employees are public records (unless some exemption to do with say, national security, applies).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- LastTrain 2y agoI really hope we can all agree it is an extremely shitty thing to do for the worlds richest person, somehow entrusted to go in and supposedly save the government some money, to publicize random individuals information he stumbles across in the process because he personally doesn't like their job title. Fuck off with whether it is 'legal' or not, that isn't the issue.
- realce 2y agoThese 5 people are our employees. We pay them with our tax dollars to assist in delivering services to ourselves and our fellow citizens. Unless secrecy is a distinct function of the service they deliver, I expect their names to be public. Transparency and accountability is owed to the taxpayer, if that's not acceptable to people then they are free to lend their talents to the private sector instead.
- 2y ago
- nxobject 2y agoFederal salaries are public information.
- liontwist 2y agoIndeed. One of the highest paid people in my local school district is a librarian who teaches no classes and gets paid 275k. Do you think it would be a good idea to get a wired article published with his name address, and 4 similar teacher profiles?
- sanderjd 2y agoAre you suggesting that the article we're discussing is "weird"? Does it list anyone's address? I feel like it just says their names and provides some basic bio info. Seems like pretty normal reporting on an important story at the top levels of the federal government.
- liontwist 2y agoYeah I’m not suggesting anything weird either. I just think the community might want to know which teachers are really well paid. They have chosen employment in the public interest. Are you with me?
- the_arun 2y agoI suspect they read "wired" as "weird".
- mint2 2y agoYo there’s literally articles regularly published on the names and pay of all local city employees in my city with specific call outs to the top paid ones. While it seems you are implying that is not cool, it’s actually unremarkable and common government transparency.
- sanderjd 2y ago
- sanderjd 2y agoFederal employees working at the level these guys appear to be currently working are always ripe to have their names and photographs in public reporting, yes. This is not "doxxing", it is just reporting on the government. Even if there was an effort to keep this information secret, it would almost certainly be subject to FOIA requests. These aren't spies, they're public servants.
- throw10920 2y ago> Federal employees working at the level these guys appear to be currently working are always ripe to have their names and photographs in public reporting, yes. This is not "doxxing", it is just reporting on the government. It absolutely is doxxing according to the dictionary definition[1] of "to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge". These are also not high-level senior officials or elected officials or those with public-facing personas - these are technical engineers whose positions do not mean that they are "always ripe to have their names and photographs in public reporting". > Even if there was an effort to keep this information secret, it would almost certainly be subject to FOIA requests. This is just factually wrong. Exemption 6 to FOIA[2] is "Information that, if disclosed, would invade another individual’s personal privacy." - which in practice means personnel names, among other things. That's three falsehoods in a single paragraph. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doxxing https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doxxing [2] https://www.justice.gov/d9/what_are_the_9_foia_exemptions.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/what_are_the_9_foia_exemptions.pd...
- sanderjd 2y agoAre you referring to this Wired article as "doxxing", or to something else? I think the article we're discussing only reported their names, right? That is not "private information" about people who are public employees. And it is the role of journalism to report on public employees, not "a form of punishment or revenge". They are high level officials! That's exactly the problem. They probably thought they were just taking technical roles, and I'm sympathetic to that, but that's not what they are doing, by the reporting in, again, the article we're discussing. (Did you read the article?) They are reportedly joining high level meetings and have high level clearances in the agencies where they're working. Again, I'm sympathetic if they got there and were thrust into this stuff and are thinking "this isn't what I signed up for! I'm in way over my head!", but if that's the case, they should have said that and bowed out of this as gracefully as possible. Again, I'm sympathetic that this is a very difficult thing for a very young and ambitious person to have the wisdom to do, after taking what appears to be a dream job with a person they have probably looked up to their whole lives. But that's both exactly why they shouldn't have these high responsibility roles, and exactly why they are such useful patsies for the powerful people using them. This is why powerful people like to use young people (especially young men) to do their dirty work! Your link on FOIA contains the quoted text, but not the claim that it "in practice means personnel names, among other things". I don't believe that is accurate, but would be interested in further citation.
- RIMR 2y agoI can look up every single public employee in my area, and find out what they make. It's not hard to find out where they live. It's called government transparency.
- ceejayoz 2y agoMusk appears to have thought so, quite recently. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858916546338590740 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858916546338590740
- dragonwriter 2y agoPublic servants name and position and pay are already generally public; major media have published entire state databases of this. That's not doxxing, that's accountability of the government to the people. Doxxing is when a person is doing a participant in an online discussion group and information they haven't made public about their real world identity, etc., is made public, it is not when people are performing high level government management functions and their identity is attached to their actions.
- mrkeen 2y agoSources: When Musk does it: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858916546338590740 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858916546338590740 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858914228624924963 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858914228624924963 When others do it: https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/comments/1igw3cs/elon_musk_says_it_is_a_crime_to_list_who_works_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/comments/1igw3cs/elon_m...
- srid 2y agoThe X post in that last link is in response to a suspended account. Screenshot for those wondering is here: https://x.com/jessesingal/status/1886479301081522599 https://x.com/jessesingal/status/1886479301081522599 (The names it includes are already in the Wired article)
- concordDance 2y ago[flagged]
- SauciestGNU 2y ago[flagged]
- alfalfasprout 2y agoHow exactly is this doxxing? When you're backchanneling cabinet-level access to a sizable chunk of the country's personal data (and a nontrivial amount of classified information to boot) you're now essentially operating as a public figure. This is reporting in the public interest. Nothing they revealed isn't available already as verifiable public information.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoIt's still doxxing because these are not elected officials. But then again... these are people outright breaking the law and I sure do want to know who's potentially tampering with my data. If the courts won't do it, someone has to put names and faces to this.
- rsoto2 2y agoThey're public figures... is it doxxing if I tell everyone the members of One Direction?
- shipscode 2y agoWhat law are they breaking?
- johnnyanmac 2y agoIANAL, but at a glance: U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material U.S. Code § 371 - Obstructing or Impairing Legitimate Government Activity Executive Order 14117 of February 28, 2024, “Preventing Access to Americans' Bulk Sensitive Personal Data and United States Government-Related Data by Countries of Concern” (“the Order”) (though this may be rescinded by Trump) If any of those BS Crypto plans[0] have any weight to them That's a straight out constitutional overstep Article I, Section 8, Clause 5: "The Congress shall have Power . . . to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; . . ." I'm probably only scratching the surface here. I'm not surprised if there's a dozen other laws with legal ledger around this. You don't want any one man messing with the economy. [0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/02/02/this-needs-to-stop-now-elon-musk-confirms-radical-doge-us-treasury-plan/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/02/02/this-... >Now, as fears emerge Trump’s administration is “dangerously” undermining the U.S. dollar, Musk has confirmed he wants to put the U.S. Treasury on a blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—including Musk’s pet project dogecoin.
- NedF 2y agoReddit - "Pink mist them all" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrYxMsWmrjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrYxMsWmrjk (Screen caps on Twitter etc. if someone wants to find and link them) Mocking != doxing. Musk was horrid to do that, but it's a different thing.
- scarab92 2y ago[flagged]
- qingcharles 2y agoI've been on Reddit since at least 2007. I've not seen any swing in political views. I think it's just that the sort of people that use Reddit are the sort of people who are typically more left-wing. I'm just glad we have social networks which are left-wing to bring balance to the system.
- scarab92 2y ago> I've not seen any swing in political views That’s like a frog saying the water isn’t getting warmer.
- realce 2y agoSo what year was reddit not described as a far-left echo chamber? When was this golden age?
- scarab92 2y agoIn 2010 Reddit was center-left, with a high degree of variance between subreddits. Today it is a far-left echo chamber in most large subreddits. The process of change was gradual. Like all echo chambers it is a result of distillation, with marginal moderate users progressively leaving in response to seeing the shrinking frontier of acceptable discourse.
- epr 2y agoTwo wrongs make a right. OK
- nailer 2y agoThere’s a difference between mocking the general function of government employees and specifically calling for violence against individual engineers.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoThese are not "individual engineers". They're government officials with seemingly vast powers which aren't yet fully understood by the public. As the article details, they seem to have the authority to demand access to most if not all of the government's computer systems; we don't yet know which of them have this authority, or what limits there are, or what review processes are in place. That doesn't mean it's OK to call for violence against them! But Wired isn't doing that. It does mean that news outlets need to report on who they are and what they're doing, even if they fear (even if they know) that third parties might issue death threats.
- bogomog 2y agoArguably, they aren't government officials, because DOGE isn't a legitimate part of the executive branch.
- stefap2 2y agoIt's created by renaming U.S. Digital Service that was created in 2014 by President Obama within the Office of Management and Budget. So it's a part of executive branch.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoI've seen that argument, but I don't understand it. The President has decided that executive agencies should operate according to certain new standards, charged the USDS with enforcing that, and put Musk in charge with a new meme name. Perhaps one or another of those standards is unlawful, but it's hard to see how the entire idea could be. What extra step is required to make DOGE legitimate?
- 2y ago
- lovich 2y ago>I hope people condemning the former also condemn the latter. Why? Its ok when our betters engage in such behavior and who could be better than the rich? When some poors like "journalists" try to do this, they're just upending the system for their own gain. It would really be tolerating corruption if you just tolerated them ripping up our current system of governance just because they preferred a different set of rules. Elections have consequences and its just gauche to ignore the results like this.
- ChuckMcM 2y agoI mean "mr free speech absolutist" has already tweeted that anyone complaining about the government would have their account suspended. Kind of on brand for a nazi.
- darthrupert 2y agoSuspending an account on a single service has absolutely nothing to do with fascism.
- shipscode 2y agoThere’s no reason to look for logical consistency. Some people like the government employees, some people like the kids taking them down. It’s a fundamental matter of opinion driving the discourse - not the misappropriation of some objectively correct morality.
- matwood 2y agoThe hypocrisy of Musk once again in full effect. Anyone who still thinks Musk is out to help anyone but himself, I have a bridge to sell you. It's sitting right next to 'free speech'. When it comes to these people specifically, they need to be publicly called out. What's happening is unprecedented and possibly illegal. I know most of the press has been bought off or strong-armed to look the other way by the new administration, but at least someone is still doing reporting.
- concordDance 2y agoAnyone have any guesses as to why "Both are quite bad. I expect better from Wired." would be flagged? Sometimes HN really confuses me.
- nojonestownpls 2y agoImagine if this was a male journalist snooping through newly appointed young, female engineers' histories, e-stalking them the same way and writing an article of his findings. You can justify it as "it's technically still reporting", but it's very creepy that they thought of this and then continued to think this was a good idea throughout the process.