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Disclosure of personal information to DOGE “is irreparable harm,” judge rules
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 762236 2y ago[flagged]
- ipaddr 2y agoNo they disclosed your private information as a citizen.
- kc711 2y agoThe issue isn't employers accessing their own records but the government improperly sharing sensitive personal data with DOGE affiliates without consent or a legitimate need-to-know justification, likely violating the Privacy Act.
- avs733 2y agoNo, this lawsuit is not about employee records. It is about customer records. Just like I can't share customer data with whoever the hell I want, they are arguing that there is a process and it was violated. Its the same lawsuit as if a company had a privacy policy on their website and just said 'nah bro' I'm going to give your social security number to some random drug addict to train a nazi AI.
- 762236 2y agoThat is a useful clarification (that it is customer records, not employee records)
- neRok 2y ago> No, this lawsuit is not about employee records. It is about customer records. That's not what the article says... > The plaintiffs include "unions and membership organizations representing current and former federal employees and federal student aid recipients and six military veterans who have received federal benefits or student loans," I wonder how much of this employee data is actually "personal", and not data relevant to their employment, which presumably isn't "private" from the perspective of the employer. So for example, I imagine their home address and birth date would be considered private; but their job title , primary place of work, start date, etc would not be "private data"...?
- avs733 2y agoFederal student aid recipients are not employees of the department of education.
- dralley 2y agoElon Musk is not a government employee and he is not their boss.
- danparsonson 2y agoI can't even fathom why anyone is listening to him. If a bunch of teenagers and discount Tony Stark turns up at your office and starts trying to fire people and demanding access to your data, isn't the correct response to tell them to fk off?
- shakna 2y ago> It may be that, with additional time, the government can explain why granting such broad access to the plaintiffs' personal information is necessary for DOGE affiliates at Education to do their jobs, but for now, the record before the Court indicates they do not have a need for these records in the performance of their duties You need to have a reason to look at that information. It is not yours to do whatever you want with.
- worik 2y ago> They're arguing that employers can't access their internal records on their employees. How are they doing that?
- worik 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- skaushik92 2y agoThe issue is that the executive branch still has prosecutorial power with impeachment as one of the only remaining checks against that (if I’m understanding correctly).
- defrost 2y ago> with impeachment as one of the only remaining checks against that impeachment appears to be a wet noodle of a check that carries all the weight of nanny saying "you've been a very naughty boy". Two impeachments and a felony conviction didn't check squat, if I'm not mistaken.
- thefreeman 2y agohe was impeached by the house, but the not the senate. if the senate had also voted to impeach he would have been removed from office.
- pixl97 2y agoLol, that is just a piece of paper that doesn't mean shit unless someone is willing to enforce the words on it. There has been a shortage of enforcers recently.
- goatlover 2y agoIf one party doesn't want to abide by that piece of paper, then there's no reason to consider them legitimate.
- goatlover 2y agoHow come there isn’t much discussion of DOGE on this site? Seems rather important and relevant to the question of whether the Silicon Valley approach to breaking things and moving quickly works for government. Also whether such an agency should have access to our data.
- nobankai 2y agoI can't blame YC for feeling the heat. VC has gone off the rails in the past few years, and their proudest alumni is an ex-Worldcoin CEO that wants everyone to invest in technology that's been "around the corner" for the past 8 quarters. I'm not saying there's a directive on-high shutting down this discussion, but if the majority of users are really YC-affiliated then this entire Trump admin thing is understandably embarassing.
- dang 2y agoOut of curiosity, how do you square that understanding with the 40 threads listed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43168527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43168527? There have been many more than just those, btw.
- nobankai 2y agoJust read jtsummers comment. I am responding to the parent's question in context, I don't care about the numbers or who they absolve.
- TimC123456 2y agoThe posts tend to get quickly flagged and thus buried. Search the archives for relevant names and keywords, and you’ll see lots of relevant yet flagged posts. Even discussions about this fact tend to get flagged.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- drawkward 2y ago
- xqcgrek2 2y ago[flagged]
- kc711 2y agoCongress should take checks and balances seriously, which includes respecting judicial independence rather than calling for impeachment just because a ruling goes against their political preferences.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoWhat did the judge do wrong?
- ronbenton 2y agoWhat does you mean? The following sounds to me like a pretty reasonable concern and not farfetched that a judge would make this interpretation >The American Federation of Teachers and other "plaintiffs have shown that Education and OPM likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing their personal information to DOGE affiliates without their consent"
- goatlover 2y agoPresidents can be impeached too. Next election is only two years away.
- blackguardx 2y agoWhere did you learn this? I learned in fourth grade that the proper process is an appeal to a higher court, of which the supreme court is the last word. They are called judicial "opinions" for a reason. Do they not teach this stuff anymore?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- timr 2y ago[flagged]
- ronbenton 2y agoShe did write "This continuing, unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates is irreparable harm that money damages cannot rectify" Anyways, for people who want the primary source, here's the opinion/restraining order: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.576070/gov.uscourts.mdd.576070.38.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.576...
- timr 2y agoYes. That's what I said -- one of the requirements of a temporary order like this, ahead of trial is that the potential damages are irreversible. It's not a judgment on the case itself.
- danparsonson 2y ago> The American Federation of Teachers and other "plaintiffs have shown that Education and OPM likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing their personal information to DOGE affiliates without their consent," said the order
- excalibur 2y agoPlease prosecute while there's still someone with integrity to do it.
- analog31 2y agoAnd someone to prosecute without immunity.
- ShakataGaNai 2y agoExcept the second it looks like their might be a chance for prosecution... there will be a pardon.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoYou can't pardon Civil cases. Nor civil contempt, given the course of how likely these people are to follow court rulings.
- ty6853 2y agoIf it were prosecuted the same way as the peasants, the direction of prosecution is generally in the direction of the person who granted access, as asking people to do illegal stuff seems to be considered fair game bait to get people prosecuted.
- timewizard 2y agoWe should possibly recognize that building federal troves of data that rely on the "good deputy" model are outmoded and need massive overhaul.
- dpe82 2y agoAlternatively, we could recognize the importance of electing officials who are serious and competent - a strategy that proved reasonably effective for over 200 years.
- eggnet 2y agoThat will require inoculating the population against propaganda.
- jachee 2y agoHow does one synthesize a mind vaccine?
- lazide 2y agoWhen people reflexively associate the techniques used with so much pain and suffering that they lash out and destroy anyone using those techniques. Come to think of it, similar to normal vaccinations I guess. None of what is going on is really a vaccination though, it’s a real infection.
- jaydeegee 2y agoIn Finland schools teach media literacy maybe that's a start.
- blooalien 2y ago> "In Finland schools teach media literacy maybe that's a start." When I was a school-goer in the 70's, 80's, and 90's they used to teach that and basic critical thinking and research skills in "Current Events", "Civics", and "History" classes here in the U.S. too, but it seems to have gone away in more recent decades. Pretty sure that "social media" destroyed a lot of that in the adult population, too (for those who even had those skills to lose in the first place). :(
- dragonwriter 2y agoThis is a temporary restraining order (TRO), so the judge did not need to, and did not actually, rule that they did violate the Privacy Act, but that they likely did so, and that this probability of success on the merits coupled with the fact that the disclosure of their banking information would constitute irreparable harm justifies a TRO while the case proceeds.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoIt's progress. I remember the alst judge rejecting a TRO because no damages were proven yet. And that's still the judgment as 14 states are suing.
- timr 2y agoYou remember that, because it was last Friday. It was also discussed in this article. Judges of different political persuasion are ruling differently on the same issue (in different cases), and the headline is misleading -- the opinion of a single judge, pre-trial, is of low significance wrt the merits of the case itself. You could just as easily write a headline that "judges are split on US gov't violating privacy law", and it would be completely factual.
- ranger_danger 2y agoMost headlines seem to be extra-misleading these days, even from the left. I have not seen so much outrage lately over things that turn out to be meh, in a long time. Like that woman from the town meeting with the corrupt local sheriff, that was escorted out by 'unidentified' 'black shirt' security... nobody seemed to realize that she was already yelling at them on several occasions that night, was told to stop yelling, then kept doing it, and THAT is when they asked her to leave, and she still refused, prompting them to 'assault' her out of the building.
- lazide 2y agoThe only thing that seems to get anyone to engage is ever increasing outrage. So, people are trying to increase outrage to get people to engage. If it’s worth engagement, or engagement does anything worthwhile? Or if people are getting away with things under the cover of all this outrage, because people are outraged out? Lost in the noise.
- zombiwoof 2y agoHow are all the Silicon Valley tech bros feeling about their divine king Musk now
- readyplayernull 2y agoLeft a taste of feet?
- somethoughts 2y agoAt what point can we start calling them Texas Tech Bros? The two primary ones are pretty much living mostly in Texas and Florida at this point.
- black_puppydog 2y agoIf you want the responsibility to be properly deflected, you should now call Musk an "DC bureaucrat". That's technically what he is now after all.
- ModernMech 2y agoSV startup culture created these monsters, they're not absolved (and by extension neither is YC and HN). It validated "move fast and break things", as well as "ends justify the means" mentality. Who cares what laws and norms you trample on as long as it advances your cause, because your cause is saving the world. It's cute when it's 4 scrappy 20-something hackers in a garage working on an app, but it's metastasized into Bond villain danger when it comes to Musk.
- huang_chung 2y agoTech-bros that invented and deployed nearly every privacy-invading technology of the last 20 years, tracked your every movement, scanned your email to show you ads, sold data for profit, now come to HN to cry privacy concern about a government audit.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoI've been consistently pro privacy and tried to withdraw as much of my 2010's data as possible once learning. So yes, i will cry privacy concern about a government audit from a non-auditer. Where is the GOA in all of this?
- nimish 2y agoTROs are preliminary injunctions in all but name. I expect SCOTUS to issue writs of mandamus reining them in otherwise Congress will simply remove the nationwide ability to issue them from the lower courts.
- yladiz 2y agoI don’t believe Congress can simply remove the ability for courts to issue restraining orders, and I don’t see why the supreme court would write any writs like that considering it’s not clear that 1. DOGE is even fully legal in the way it’s acting, and 2. that it has legal mandate for what it asks for, like in this case.
- nimish 2y ago>I don’t believe Congress can simply remove the ability for courts to issue restraining orders, and I don’t see why the supreme court would write any writs like that considering it’s not clear that 1. DOGE is even fully legal in the way it’s acting, and 2. that it has legal mandate for what it asks for, like in this case. The lower federal courts are not specifically authorized in the Constitution; their power comes from the Judiciary Act and SCOTUS delegating. SCOTUS can issue writs of mandamus for whatever they want to within constitutional bounds and they might have to otherwise we'll get a bigger constitutional crisis on how much the executive branch has to listen to the judiciary. We already had this w/ Andrew Jackson: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it”
- yladiz 2y agoStill, why would the Supreme Court write such a writ? The courts seem to be following correct procedure, and it doesn’t matter if the Supreme Court or a lower court is the one to decide, the executive branch is still beholden to the decision, so I don’t really get the point about a bigger constitutional crisis if the executive doesn’t listen anyway, since there’s still the same crisis.
- nimish 2y ago
- floppiplopp 2y ago[flagged]
- but_whole 2y agoPray tell why the govt has our personal information... particularly in light of all of the massive leaks that have occured from govt databases