Comment by javcasas 3 days ago
Do you know why in Portugal they have 4 different ID numbers?
It is like that to prevent the state from persecuting people on the base that it is hard for a branch of the government to figure out who is someone based on a number from a different branch.
Do you know why they want to prevent the government from persecuting people?
Because it has already happened, and the portuguese don't want it to happen again.
Same here in Germany, only recently we got the tax ID number as a global primary key to the objections of many privacy activists.
Ex-Yugoslavian countries have had a global ID forever - the JMBG or, in Croatia, OIB [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Master_Citizen_Number
> they are parallelising the work
That's an interesting rephrasing for "sidestepping all security to get access".
> The access is read only, and they are not linking personal data between agencies
Yup, that's exacly what someone who wants to change the beneficiaries of a few contracts and payments, as well as fire some of the people overseeing my companies would say.
No, the animosity is coming from the belligerent way DOGE is going about its work, and the lack of security clearance or any oversight of these people, some of whom are very inexperienced and some of whom have clear conflicts of interest, and the enormous power they are accumulating.
Since you seem to know what you are talking about:
I am a bit confused by your stressing the access is read-only. Isn't that obviously given (apologies for the redundant words, but I really don't know how to convey my confusion). For what purpose they could ever be given a write access to the hundreds of federal databases they are supposed to analyze?
Also, if they don't have the manpower to go over the data one by one then they don't have the power to go over them in parallel. When you say "parallelising the work" what exactly does that mean? What is it specifically that they are "parallelising"? Is there an engineer/analyst looking at multiple screens simultaneously and arriving conclusions for multiple agencies at the same time?
> they are not linking personal data between agencies
> Trump has prohibited Musk from being involved in with the review in agencies where he was a material conflict
I'm not saying these are or aren't happening, but it seems like a lot of "good faith" assumptions here. If you assume Musk is an unethical actor, these seem mostly meaningless.
You haven't yet learned the lesson of the Trump victories. The lesson is that he can just do whatever he wants, and there are no adults in the room to stop him.
Elon is starting to catch on.
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/19/its-easy-to-save-billion...
DOGE is literally making up that people had bad work reviews to justify firing them. They are liars 100% down.
They are literally firing people first and then calling them back? How is that efficiency?
I cannot believe we are talking about these people seriously with all the BS "We saved $* Billion dollars to stop Mind Control News" on the DOGE "website".
Musk is not in a position to identify waste and fraud.
What does he know of the genesis and status of these payments? Congress directs spending and oversees the administration, not the other way around.
Why does he have to finish in an arbitrary time frame?
This is all justification after the fact for those who support Musk/Trump unconditionally.
It's all fun and games until your Medicare/Social Security/Tax Refund or other legitimate payment gets cancelled arbitrarily, illegally and unconstitutionally.
Trump has prohibited Musk from being involved in any reviews where he was a material conflict (FAA for example).
You keep saying things that are blatantly untrue, people give you massive evidence they aren't true, then you keep saying them. Why is that?
Elon Musk’s Companies Were Under Investigation by Five Inspectors General When the Trump Administration Fired Them and Made Musk the Investigator
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2025/02/elon-musks-companies-...
https://www.levernews.com/trump-purges-inspectors-general-in...
Agency sent a memo to all agency staff notifying them that “all election security activities” would be paused pending the results of an internal investigation. The memo also stated that the administration was cutting off all funds to the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center—a Department of Homeland Security–funded organization that helps state and local officials monitor, analyze, and respond to cyberattacks targeting the nation’s election hardware and software.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/trump-doge-layof...
FDA staff were reviewing Elon Musk’s brain implant company. DOGE just fired them.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/17/fda-...
https://gizmodo.com/doge-reportedly-cuts-fda-employees-inves...
> agencies where they aren't even active yet
Deferred resignation offers ("fork in the road" emails) and terminating all probationary employees (those without civil service protections) are cross-agency recommendations by DOGE since the beginning. It doesn't make sense to say they "aren't even active yet" when 8 days after inauguration the entire civil service was sent the same email that Twitter employees got.
Additionally, the EO establishing DOGE required all agency heads to assign a team from DOGE within 30 days, which has passed. They're everywhere.
So by your logic, after musk donated $288 million to his campaign and then trump fires five inspector generals that are investigating his companies, that's not a conflict of interest?
Secondly, Trump has clearly stated that Musk is not permitted to act where he has a conflict, and the agency directors will be aware of this.
Trump is honest and can be trusted in your experience?
If these aren't conflicts of interest, what would an actual conflict of interest look like?
Dictatorship from 1926 to 1976, and yet a strangely obscure one, probably due to neutrality during world war two.