Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

typodupeerror

Submission+-Wired Is Covering the Musk Takeover of the US Government

kilgoreTrout1968 writes: Wired magazine's Vittoria Elliot is doing invaluable journalism covering Musk's invasion of the US Government's IT infrastructure. Wired is not giving glowing coverage. This is Wired magazine, folks, the people who know Musk best and most likely to be his fans

https://www.wired.com/author/v...
https://www.wired.com/story/th...

Submission+-Musk says DOGE will upgrade Air Traffic Control soon (thehill.com) 1

SonicSpike writes: Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Wednesday said the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will make “rapid safety upgrades” to the air traffic control systems with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“With the support of President @realDonaldTrump, the @DOGE team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system,” Musk wrote Wednesday on the social platform X, which he owns.

“Just a few days ago, the FAA’s primary aircraft safety notification system failed for several hours!” he added, likely referring to an outage of the FAA’s Notice to Air Mission system over the weekend.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CNN over the weekend that the system allows pilots to download flight details ahead of a trip and is required for planes to fly.

Shortly before Musk’s post on Wednesday, Duffy posted on X that he spoke with the DOGE team, who will “plug in to help upgrade our aviation system.”

The Department of Transportation (DOT) did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for more details on what these upgrades could look like.

When asked about the upgrades, a White House spokesperson doubled down on DOGE’s mission.

Submission+-Immigration and Customs Enforcement Goes BlackHat SEO?

TheWho79 writes: Looks like (ICE) Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has gone old school and playing with a little Black Hat SEO by updating old press releases with fresh dates. Those dates cause Google to surface those old stories — some going back to mid-2000's to make it appear as though they happened recently.

All the archived Ice press releases soaring to the top of Google search results were marked with the same timestamp and read: “Updated: 01/24/2025”. The lawyer noticed a strange pattern. In almost every state, at least one press release from Ice’s website appeared in Google’s top results. Nebraska, for example, surfaced links for two press releases. One said “ICE executes federal search warrants in Nebraska”, the other said “ICE fugitive operations team arrests 44 absconders”. Both displayed their dates of publication as 24 January 2025 on Google search. But when the lawyer clicked through to the report, the actual dates of publication were August 2018 and June 2008, respectively.

Submission+-US ICE Updates Immigration Raid Timestamps to Game Goggle Search Results (theguardian.com)

TheReaperD writes: News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.

But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story.

All the archived Ice press releases soaring to the top of Google search results were marked with the same timestamp and read: “Updated: 01/24/2025”.

So, it looks like rather than actually doing any immigration raids, they're simply changing the timestamps on raids dating back to 2008 to claim credit again for raids they did long. Once again, hype over substance.

Submission+-Techdirt: A Coup Is In Progress In America (techdirt.com) 4

An anonymous reader writes: A coup is underway in the United States, and we must stop pretending otherwise. The signs are unmistakable and accelerating: in just the past 48 hours, Elon Musk’s DOGE commission has seized control of Treasury payment systems and gained unauthorized access to classified USAID materials, while security officials who followed protocols were removed. Career civil servants across agencies are being systematically purged for having followed legal requirements during previous administrations. The president openly declares he won’t enforce laws he dislikes, while Congress watches in complicit silence. This isn’t happening through tanks in the streets or soldiers at government buildings—it’s occurring through the systematic dismantling of constitutional governance and its replacement with a system of personal loyalty to private interests. Those who resist are being removed, while those who enable this transformation are being rewarded with unprecedented control over government functions. The time for euphemisms and careful hedging has passed. We are watching, in real time, the conversion of constitutional democracy into something darker and more dangerous. To pretend otherwise isn’t prudence—it’s complicity.

Submission+-Musk says he 'deleted' IRS easy filing team (rawstory.com)

echo123 writes: Musk says he 'deleted' IRS easy filing team that let Americans file taxes for free online

= = = = =

In a post on X, unelected government official Elon Musk revealed that he has cut the staff of the Internal Revenue Service that oversaw the system that allows Americans to file their taxes for free easily on its website.

A right-wing MAGA influencer called the "direct file" tax program a "far left government wide computer office" that was "built by Elizabeth Warren."

He claimed, "Direct file puts the government in charge of preparing people's tax returns for them," he claimed.

Musk responded by saying, "That group has been deleted."

Thus far, the website remains active.

The Treasury Department said on its website, "Direct File is a historic new IRS service that allows eligible taxpayers to prepare and file their tax return online, for free, including access to help from dedicated IRS Direct File customer support representatives."

It was available in both Spanish and English and wasn't a mandatory program for anyone. Those who didn't trust the system could still fill out their taxes by hand and mail them.

Submission+-California Reservoir Dams Opened At Trump's Order2

Petersko writes: At the order of the President, 2.2 billion gallons of water were released from reservoirs in Central California on Friday. The goal, according to his posts on Truth Social, was to provide water to "farmers throughout the state, and to Los Angeles."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03...

"There are two major problems, water experts said: The newly released water will not flow to Los Angeles, and it is being wasted by being released during the wet winter season."

“They were holding extra water in those reservoirs because of the risk that it would be a dry summer,” Heather Cooley, director of research for California water policy organization the Pacific Institute. “This puts agriculture at risk of insufficient water during the summer months.”

According to Trump, an additional 3 billion gallons will follow.

"The US Army Corps of Engineers and the White House did not respond to CNN’s request for comment."

CommentRe:Any political side that fears good science data (Score 1)70

Don't overlook something that's happening quietly compared to all the ruckus being caused: destroying the Department of Education, and expanding implementation of so-called 'school vouchers', which is just a way to do an end-run around the Separation of Church and State, allowing people to use taxpayer money to enroll their (white nationalist) children into (whites only) religious schools (that no doubt will indoctrinate them into 'white nationalist' ideology).
If all that isn't stopped and reversed, we'll have at least an entire generation of kids who grew up being bigots and racists after having it drilled into their heads that non-whites are not even human beings and not worthy of being treated like human beings.
Re-submerging now, before the fascist pigs of Slashdot notice I poked my head back up.

Submission+-Elon Musk admits to paying others to "boost" his game characters to top of ranks (washingtonpost.com) 1

ubermiester writes: From WaPo: Musk "...boasted to Joe Rogan that he ranked among the world’s best players of the role-playing game 'Diablo IV'" and bragged "about how quickly he had conquered the global leaderboards of another game, “Path of Exile 2,” blasting “through the ‘toughest’ content, popping monsters like balloons.”

But the gaming community "suspected that he had pursued a widely mocked tactic known as “boosting,” paying strangers to play his character and rake in loot so that, when he logged in, he could face challenges with the most powerful gear."

"Musk fought the allegations before ultimately confessing in messages this month. “It’s impossible to beat players in Asia if you don’t,” he wrote. A few days later, his character could be seen chasing treasure through the game’s sulfuric caverns while Musk was in the Capitol Rotunda, attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration."

“Elon lost the trust of all gamers overnight,” Dan Nelson, a programmer in Philadelphia, said in an X post liked more than 100,000 times. “Boosting your account and lying about it is the worst offense. incredibly cringe, fragile ego on full display.”

Submission+-Senator Ted Cruz is trying to block Wi-Fi hotspots for schoolchildren (arstechnica.com) 2

An anonymous reader writes: US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is trying to block a plan to distribute Wi-Fi hotspots to schoolchildren, claiming it will lead to unsupervised Internet usage, endanger kids, and possibly restrict kids' exposure to conservative viewpoints. "The government shouldn't be complicit in harming students or impeding parents' ability to decide what their kids see by subsidizing unsupervised access to inappropriate content," Cruz said.

Submission+-OPM Sued Over Privacy Concerns With New Government-Wide Email System (thehill.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Two federal employees are suing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to block the agency from creating a new email distribution system — an action that comes as the information will reportedly be directed to a former staffer to Elon Musk now at the agency. The suit, launched by two anonymous federal employees, ties together two events that have alarmed members of the federal workforce and prompted privacy concerns. That includes an unusual email from OPM last Thursday reviewed by The Hill said the agency was testing “a new capability” to reach all federal employees — a departure from staffers typically being contacted directly by their agency’s human resources department.

Also cited in the suit is an anonymous Reddit post Monday from someone purporting to be an OPM employee, saying a new server was installed at their office after a career employee refused to set up a direct line of communication to all federal employees. According to the post, instructions have been given to share responses to the email to OPM chief of staff Amanda Scales, a former employee at Musk’s AI company. Federal agencies have separately been directed to send Scales a list of all employees still on their one-year probationary status, and therefore easier to remove from government. The suit says the actions violate the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires a Privacy Impact Assessment before pushing ahead with creation of databases that store personally identifiable information.

Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a non-profit law firm, noted that OPM has been hacked before and has a duty to protect employees’ information. "Because they did that without any indications to the public of how this thing was being managed — they can’t do that for security reasons. They can’t do that because they have not given anybody any reason to believe that this server is secure.that this server is storing this information in the proper format that would prevent it from being hacked,” he said. McClanahan noted that the emails appear to be an effort to create a master list of federal government employees, as “System of Records Notices” are typically managed by each department. “I think part of the reason — and this is just my own speculation — that they’re doing this is to try and create that database. And they’re trying to sort of create it by smushing together all these other databases and telling everyone who receives the email to respond,” he said.

Submission+-Hostile Takeover of Federal Government Underway (dailykos.com) 9

An anonymous reader writes:

I'm a current employee at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). This is a throwaway account for obvious reasons. I’m posting this because people need to know what’s going on at OPM.

I’ve been an OPM employee for nearly a decade and a Federal Employee for almost 20 years. I’ve never witnessed anything even remotely close to what’s happening right now. In short, there's a hostile takeover of the federal civil service.

Let me say this in no uncertain terms — OPM has been compromised and taken over. The very backbone of American Government, the HR of all HR in the U.S. Government has been taken over by outside politicals. In just five days, they managed to push aside dozens of non-political, career civil servants who were there specifically to prevent the civil service from becoming the President's henchmen.


Submission+-SPAM:Hostile takeover of the Federal Government in progress

An anonymous reader writes:

Let me say this in no uncertain terms — OPM has been compromised and taken over. The very backbone of American Government, the HR of all HR in the U.S. Government has been taken over by outside politicals. In just five days, they managed to push aside dozens of non-political, career civil servants who were there specifically to prevent the civil service from becoming the President's henchmen.


Link to Original Source

Slashdot Top Deals

"We live, in a very kooky time." -- Herb Blashtfalt

Working...
close