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Elon Musk's DOGE Posts Classified Data on Its New Website

huffpost.com

94 points by f38zf5vdt 10 months ago · 36 comments

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Terr_ 10 months ago

Oh god, this is like when that one type of executive insists that you give full database access and a firewall exception so that some SaaS report-builder tool will let them "generate insights" and "demonstrate value".

  • bravetraveler 10 months ago

    One type? Damn near all of them! +1 nonetheless

    edit: We'll get to demonstrate more value cleaning up the mess this creates! SWE/SRE is controlled opposition, change my mind /s

adamredwoods 10 months ago

Most of this is from FedScope:

https://www.fedscope.opm.gov/

But the part Musk was not suppose to unveil:

>> Musk can’t claim he wasn’t aware that the National Reconnaissance Office is one of the nation’s intelligence agencies. His company, SpaceX, has a $1.8 billion contract with NRO to build hundreds of spy satellites.

jfengel 10 months ago

Is that a crime?

I imagine it's a crime if you have a security clearance. But as far as I'm aware these guys never promised not to give away classified information.

Of course they can be pardoned, and they don't even need a pardon if the Justice Department decides not to prosecute. But just as a matter of idle curiosity, has any law actually be violated?

  • tssva 10 months ago

    When questions about their access has arisen earlier the administration has said they were granted security clearances. Releasing classified information is in that case is potentially illegal and at a minimum was normally result in your security clearance being revoked. But these guys didn’t go through the normal processes for obtaining a security clearance, so there is no reason to believe the normal rules and laws will be followed now.

    • tssva 10 months ago

      Although outside the norm nothing about this is beyond the rights of the executive. The DoJ has always had prosecutorial discretion and the granting of security clearances has always been a discretionary decision of the executive.

    • taylodl 10 months ago

      Didn't you hear the news? No laws or regulations apply to the executive branch any longer. Anything they do is, by their estimation, legal. </s>

  • throw0101d 10 months ago

    > But as far as I'm aware these guys never promised not to give away classified information.

    It does not matter what they promised, as it is against the law to give away classified information:

    > Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information— […]

    * https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798

  • basementcat 10 months ago

    The President will just say he declassified the information in his head before the data was disclosed. Even if he didn’t, he may argue this is an "official act" and cannot be subject to prosecution.

  • dragonwriter 10 months ago

    > has any law actually be violated?

    Any revelation of classified information to uncleared people violates the law; if DOGE staff were cleared it was illegal for them to reveal it, if they weren't it was illegal for them to be given access to it in the first place (which they must have had in order to reveal it).

    Additionally, there are crimes for gathering and revealing sensitive national security information irrespective of having clearance, these are found in the Espionage Act. Julian Assange’s crime didn't involve him having clearance.

  • 4ndrewl 10 months ago

    Meaningless question. You don't have a fully functional justice system any more.

  • ModernMech 10 months ago

    It’s not a crime because POTUS can post-facto declassify it, so that when Musk posted it, it was declassified.

  • croes 10 months ago

    Ask Assange

throw0101d 10 months ago

Specifically about the NRO:

> The website states in tiny print at the bottom that its database excludes information from U.S. intelligence agencies.

> But an easy search shows that DOGE’s database provides details on the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal agency that designs, builds and maintains U.S. intelligence satellites. Not only are NRO’s budgets and head counts classified, but the prospect of Musk’s tech team meddling in sensitive personnel information is setting off alarms for some in the intelligence community.

The NRO runs the US's spy satellites:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reconnaissance_Office

beretguy 10 months ago

russians are wining the cold war. They have successfully compromised US from within.

  • parasti 10 months ago

    As a European, I feel this rings closer to truth than fiction.

  • up2isomorphism 10 months ago

    Russian already lost Cold War long time ago.

  • belter 10 months ago

    "US Vice President Vance shuns Scholz and meets AfD party leader instead" - https://www.euronews.com/2025/02/14/us-vice-president-vance-...

    Maybe Putin is right. It's Nazis everywhere.

  • IAmGraydon 10 months ago

    I think it's so wild as to be unbelievable by most people. It's the same reason the climate crisis is denied by so many people - because it seems so scary as to be unthinkable so they mentally categorize it as fiction or propaganda.

    The US has long been the leader in pure military force. The Russians, however, discovered that the way to defeat this is from within - with psychological manipulation. A bomb goes off and instantly destroys everything around it. This weapon, however, is just as powerful but works very slowly and methodically.

    I think it goes something like this: Putin knows he needs to get to Trump. To get to Trump, he needs to find a person that has shown that they posses a mind to get what they want and also has the one thing that makes them a god in Trump's eyes. Elon is the perfect target, as he has both - he's the richest man alive, meaning Trump worships him and he has the financial power and mindset to enact real change. I think it's entirely possible that Putin and Russian intelligence figured out how to get into Elon's mind and radicalize him (he has several known conversations with Putin himself), using him as a puppet to get to the white house. All of the ideas this guy and his entourage are parroting mirror the ideas of one person - the greatest enemy of democracy in the world - Putin.

    I'm not some conspiracy theorist. In fact I hate it and am proudly banned from the conspiracy subreddit for informing them that they're all delusional. That said, I truly believe this is really happening. Unless this is immediately stopped, this will lead to the darkest period in the history of the modern world.

    I wonder what are the chances that a group within the US Government intelligence communities recognizes what's going on here and is monitoring it?

    • ModernMech 10 months ago

      It’s really much more simple and banal than that. The fact is, Trump and Musk are just a pure distillation of our narcissistic culture. Their venality is the venality of our society. None of this would be possible without the public’s buy-in. Fact of the matter is we did this to ourselves, we are a sick society, and Putin just got lucky.

      If you want to frame it Cold War terms tho, you could say Capitalism turned out the same as Communism, just took longer. In the end no one won the war.

hypothesis 10 months ago

No waste and fraud so far, but making good progress in leaking of classified info. It’s just another unspeakable horror for people who decided to help USA and will be killed by adversaries as a result...

  • unsupp0rted 10 months ago

    > No waste and fraud so far,

    Really?

    • ajford 10 months ago

      Yep. They claim all sorts of things, but there is no transparency or proof that any wastage or actual fraud was present.

      It's all just ideological things that Project 2025/MAGA/Daddy Musk doesn't like. The CFPB is a perfect example. Musk wants to get into finance so he's gutting a department that only exists to protect consumers.

    • hypothesis 10 months ago

      You really did expand here, so I’m guessing you’re talking about Cybertrucks order from feds, which is apparently on hold now after it got some publicity:

      > State Department halts plan to buy $400M worth of armored vehicles from Musk’s Tesla

      https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-tesla-biden-federal-con...

  • up2isomorphism 10 months ago

    This attitude is what cost your party this election.

randomcatuser 10 months ago

the site would be better if the back button worked.

Does anyone know if there's non-classified data, like something similar that already exists?

Would be interesting to see (e.g. where all the contract money is, etc)

belter 10 months ago

"Who’s working for Elon Musk’s DOGE?" - https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/14/doge-empl...

  • IAmGraydon 10 months ago

    I am so sick of these media sites putting information that is critical to the free world behind a paywall so they can make their money above all. This is information that NEEDS to be known, and the media is a massive part of the problem for doing this.

    https://archive.is/Nsk0W

sidewndr46 10 months ago

So DOGE now has access to data that Congress can't even see?

empirebuilder 10 months ago

Wow, it's actually a great website.

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