The DOGE team included several convicted teenage hackers, one known as 'big balls', messing around in government systems and copying data to random laptops.

Fantastic.

I'll be interested to browse this sensitive data at some point when it inevitably becomes public in the next few years as a result of this kakistocracy.

No this is the DOGE team that was demanding that none of their access be logged while also requesting access with no limits from any device at any time.

All jokes aside I’m confused why some people are responding to valid criticisms of this team by saying that we only care because they’re young.

I don't know anyone who has worked with young 20 somethings and thought that they should have unrestricted access to sensitive data. This is not a comment on these people specifically, it's a comment on all people of that age. I include myself in that group. Under no circumstances should I have been allowed that kind of access at 22.

Snowdon, in his biography, recalls working with other 20-somethings in his work at the NSA. They abused their access egregiously. They were looking at people’s nudes and stuff.

I did have it (early email system).

I abused that access, and almost got fired.

Taught me a big lesson.

I bet you also think men in their 80s shouldn’t run the country

Right, but that's a comment on yourself, even if you meant that for everyone else. Society absolutely trusts 20 somethings for sensitive data all the time.

Don't give me the bullshit about "this situation". Go to your nearest hospital and notices a sea of young nurses handling you and your family's medical data on a clipboard, paper, and a very poorly secured 20 year old workstation.

You are inconsistent, and you will continue to be inconsistent. In fact, your bank account info is known by the teller who has similar qualifications, your purchases and address is known by the customer service representative hired straight out of high school or in a call center in Egypt, and so much more.

This talking point is entirely a political cudgel that only makes sense to the kind of folk that do not think past their favorite politician's tweets. On that fact, wanna know who's been managing your letters/calls that you've been sending your politician? These ones know your phone number, and any modern filter will be looking for your address.

> Go to your nearest hospital and notices a sea of young nurses handling you and your family's medical data on a clipboard, paper, and a very poorly secured 20 year old workstation.

If you ignore the core difference - scale - you won't be able to see the difference. Young nurse won't be able to leak all data on all people even if those local papers and workstation are left on the sidewalk for anyone to see

Generically, the social security tech arm probably hires 20 somethings that have a way to access that data as well.

Because they don't have valid defenses or counter-arguments.

Not only were the kids, and they were kids, they were also convicted criminals.

No, the joke is your naive statement. Unless you've been under a rock the last ten or so years, you'd understand how incredibly stupid the whole DOGE debacle is.

All the collected info will soon either be used against us or sold to the highest bidder. (No, that's not paranoia, that's how the current administration acts.)

It’s all fun and games until someone misreads the tone of your post on HN :(

The US IC uses convicted hackers all the time. I was shocked when I learned that certain felons can still get a TS clearance, as long as they stay clean.

Source?

Personal experience. Sorry, I cannot provide anything else. Believe me or don't believe me. I had clearances for over 40 years, now I'm retired.

So do faang.

I'm pretty skeptical of people that use terms like 'normie' myself.

The name itself is not a primary issue, just a gauge of maturity, the bigger issue should probably be the criminal convictions.

It’s baseline internet culture these days among the under 40 crowd.

'Normie' takes are what's needed when dealing with sensitive data of this scale.

"Move fast and break things" is fine for startups risking their own life savings or venture capital. It's not ok for governments that are meant to be looking after the health and welfare of their population.

The Clinton / Gore approach seemed to work. Unfortunately it wasn't glamorously headline-making, it was just hard work, so it hasn't been replicated since.

"Understanding this culture" is understanding it needs serious adult supervision to work on things that support society itself.

Okay, yeah, but you kinda want people in your government to (a) not be defined by their history of trolling, (b) not be associated with crypto scams, and (c) maybe be marginally trained and competent at what they do, no?

> The whole 'big balls' thing is a silly ad-hominem that weakens your argument.

It's not an ad-hom, it's a metric to gauge the maturity of the teenager granted such high level access and responsibility.

BB is a script kiddie. How would you know how good his DOGE performance is to make a valid comparison.

I don’t know that that makes the argument for them having access to this data any better.

"Ad-hominem" translates as "to the person" and means an argument that attacks the person they're arguing against rather than actually addressing the topic being discussed.

Here, the topic is a person. It's not an ad-hominem to describe facts about a person when your argument is explicitly about that person.

> The DOGE team included the teenage hackers

It's amusing to me how so many people want to believe technical workers within the government are apparently all crusty, old, 50-something's instead of young "kids" in their twenties and thirties.

NSA, every branch of the military, and more are bursting at the seams with twenty-somethings that have access to some of the most sensitive information on the planet... yet nobody bats an eye.

Then we can consider the technical staff at places such as Experian, Capital One, and more... they're all fairly young too.

This has turned into quite the political narrative... "twenty-somethings have access to your data - be afraid, very afraid!"

I'm not sure what what op meant. At least two people there were teenage hackers, but not in a positive sense. They were part of crime organisations.

But even concentrating on the age part - people in their 20s are working NSA and others. They're extremely unlikely to have access to the most sensitive information unsupervised since they're not senior enough. And definitely don't have a Yolo level decision making responsibilities. The restrictions, reporting, clearances and rules following in some of those places are unlike anything Doge ever did.

Teenagers, as you say, are entrusted by the government with weapons that can destroy and cause untold amount of damage on personnel and property and nobody has complained about that. There even 17-year-olds with such responsibility. Also, plenty of people in their early 20s either have access to sensitive data or have access to code accessing such data.

> weapons that can destroy and cause untold amount of damage on personnel and property and nobody has complained about that.

Yeah... No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_against_the_V...

"Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" was about teens being sent out as well.

You say entrusted like it's some great honor. Teenagers are _used_ in wars because they are easy to manipulate, indoctrinate and control.

There's a big difference in consequences. Military, copy wrong data to random laptop -> court martial.

Are you suggesting there are no consequences for government employees who willfully steal and/or leak confidential data?

The Espionage Act of 1917, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and Economic Espionage Act, among others, beg to differ.

> Are you suggesting there are no consequences for government employees who willfully steal and/or leak confidential data?

Depends on who your friends in government are.

> The Espionage Act of 1917, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and Economic Espionage Act, among others, beg to differ.

Assaulting police officers and trying to overthrow the government is also illegal. People have been convicted of it. And yet if you know the right people you won't suffer any consequences:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_January_6_United_Sta...

with this administration, nobody is suggesting that at all. there is no doubt there are no consequences if you're taking orders directly from the supreme leader or his immediate staff. that's a certainty.

Wait, which administration are you talking about?

Prosecuting crimes under those acts requires an AG who's qualified and isn't kowtowing to a President more than willing to pardon traitors and a judiciary that isn't blindly following a conservative agenda.

We are fucked without even the benefit of lube.

> It's amusing to me how so many people want to believe technical workers within the government are apparently all crusty, old, 50-something's instead of young "kids" in their twenties and thirties.

The word I used was 'teenage'.

Wow, and here I thought it's because the guy calls himself "Big Balls" and has a career in .. Discord crypto scams? You know, hacker as in "criminal", just too stupid to appear on Brian Krebs.

No, it was just the age apparently.

Am I talking to GPT? Is your knowledge cutoff 2 years ago? Invoke the web tool, do the research. Bizarre redirect into statute reading, tremendously boring.

I’m thinking this is just one of those that’s become emotionally invested in defending a certain group for some reason and he’s going to make an argument against anything he perceives as a slight towards them.

> one of those that’s become emotionally invested in defending a certain group for some reason

Sunk cost fallacy is a hell of a thing. It's why Q-Anon was able to grow.

I really dislike the billing of "injunction lifted" as "court decides that [...]". Finality matters more. And before you say that DOGE getting into Treasury is a problem blah blah blah they've already been there and the Secretary can do the things that DOGE wants independently of DOGE anyways.

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44204767

> The conservative-majority court, with its three liberal justices objecting, granted an emergency application filed by the Trump administration asking the justices to lift an injunction issued by a federal judge in Maryland.

Wild. I remember when it was presumed that Conservative meant protector of individual freedoms, rights.

And also letting the States do most of the governing.

Except California, they're fucking wrong! ;)

That was never the case, but like it didn't stop the presumption from appearing then, nothing stops from keeping the same presumtion now

Were these the same conservatives trying to argue that chattel slavery should be legal, at the discretion of the state?

Republicans, not conservatives, might rightfully have been the party of protecting individual rights and freedoms. Back in the 1850s.

>I remember when it was presumed that Conservative meant protector of individual freedoms, rights.

Presumed by whom? I've always understood Conservatism to be explicitly Christian in its ideology, opposed to womens' rights, "non-traditional" sexual orientation and gender identity, abortion, multiculturalism, pornography, modern art, rock music, drug use and a litany of other things. The freedom to think and act outside of the box of "traditional American values and culture" has rather more often been championed by progressives and leftists.

Conservatives do support the individual freedom to own a gun, though. For individuals of a certain phenotype.

> Conservatives do support the individual freedom to own a gun, though. For individuals of a certain phenotype.

Which is funny, right? Their whole justification was to fight back if the government becomes authoritarian, when it turns out they love an authoritarian government that enforces their values.

They've even tried to intellectualize dictatorships by rebranding it as "unitary executive theory". They surround it with philosophical reasoning but it fundamentally boils down to "the president should be able to do whatever he wants guys!!!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory

There're more than one justification given. Gun rights supporters, like the Republican party itself (and the Democratic party too, of course), are a coaltion of different interests, and not all self-described convervatives would consider gun rights to be an important issue. Some people support gun rights for self-defense, others for hunting. Really it's only the wingnut conspiracy theorists who are silly enough to believe that they could successfully fight back against the modern militarized state.

Hunting is very much a cultural issue, passed down the generations by family tradition, so you'd be hard pressed to change minds on that.

That does not pass the smell test. If the issue was hunting, they would be fine with restrictions on non hunting guns, background checks etc. Hunting is a sound good excuse.

Keep in mind that politicians receive funding from the military-industrial complex and other lobbying groups, so they don't necessarily represent the interests of their constituents.

It is ironic that a lot of the gun control laws conservatives rail about in California are a direct result of Reagan’s time as governor with the intent largely to suppress and allow enforcement against black people having guns.

That was always a lie. Conservatives were always about own right to abuse others and never cared about rights of anyone else.

It's really a stretch to say that "individual freedoms" means protecting my data held by one federal agency from access by another federal agency.

It's fine if you want to call it a bad idea... but stopping this access really doesn't give me the freedom to do anything.

I mean DOGE is ... not a federal agency.

At least that's what the administration says when they want to argue that it's not subject to FOIA.

It seems likely that the Pentagon will force SpaceX to merge with another company, which should be good for Tesla and Boring, but sad for his Mars dream.

As for DOGE, Trump has a couple options. He can shut it down and blame Musk, or he can let it keep running against the advice of his team. After DOGE is gone, they will be able to get a warrant and start looking for copies of the data. The first place to look is X.

Since "a bit of external review" was always there, what's your actual argument that a review by this specific team is in order?

> https://www.usdebtclock.org

More specifically, a stable system requires feedback loops.

Ours, like a vehicle without brakes, is running open-loop.

I guess that if all one cares about is blame management, then we can all just blame ${FIGURE} when the whole thing "unexpextedly" craters, rather than putting on the Big People Pants and reforming matters.

You can't use generic pants/vehicles metaphors instead of a specific response and say it's more specific - it isn't, even to those people who care about more than blaming "management"

> If a fraction of the lurid tales of corruption prove valid, then this is not a bad thing.

If my grandmother had wheels she would be a bicycle.

> The SSA was never anything other than a Tenth Amendment violation to begin with, as shown by FDR's court packing threat[1], so a bit of external review seems in order.

I know about the plan. But how did you make the jump from that to SSA being unconstitutional?

> Some sort of sane transition plan off of these socialized programs would be of great interest to a super-majority of voters, one expects.

A plan to eliminate program that keeps 22 million Americans out of poverty most of whom are seniors is of great interest to a super-majority of voters?

Kids, this is what happens when you read far right conspiracy theory websites for news.

> But how did you make the jump from that to SSA being unconstitutional?

The 10A was intended to preclude scope creep. In defense of FDR, the voters let the Progressives run plays.

So here we sit, decades later, waiting for a debt bomb to 'splode.

The progressives were never in power...

Tell me, how will the "Big Beautiful Bill", that adds multiple trillions to the debt while gutting essential social programs, will fix your "debt bomb"?

To me, it appears like straight up stealing, putting all the country's wealth in tax cuts to the rich and government contracts to military contractors. All the while placing the country on a sure path to financial and social ruin.

> The progressives were never in power...

Prohibition, state-run eugenics programs, the end of freedom of contract, Wickard v. Fillburn, the Imperial Presidency, internationalist interventionism, etc. were all born from the original Progressivism movement.

What are these "lurid tales of corruption"?

There was the proven false claim that 40% of phone calls to SSA were fraudulent. I think it was DOGE fraud checking systems that proved that claim false, quite soon after Musk proclaimed it.

https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2025/05/doge-went...

Personally, it feels like the tiny nibbles that DOGE has managed to save from the massive banquet of spending that US government does is proof that there really isn't a lot of waste based on corruption. The spending is systemic and has built up over decades of various policy changes throughout many administrations of both colours.

Off topic, it feels as if this administration has also very effectively disproved any theory about the presence of a deep state controlling things from the background. Interestingly, Trump appears to be trying to show that it's possible, except for the fact that he's putting ridiculously unqualified and incompetent boobs into positions of influence. It'd be laughable except for the fact that this is not a TV show, this is real life.

Not laughable: the ridiculous deficit/debt.

> The spending is systemic and has built up over decades of various policy changes throughout many administrations of both colours.

Strong concur. Time for reform.

Except that the administration is about to create biggest deficit ever. And they were unabke to find waste.

It is funny ... employment by goverment was actually going down for years. America has low taxes so it could pay its debt, but it is choosing to lower them for richests and put more debt in.

> America has low taxes

For whom, pray tell? Look at your combined burden, top to bottom, at all levels.