Judge Blocks the DOGE Boys at Treasury – Finally
In the early hours this morning a federal judge FINALLY took a definitive step to stop Elon Musk and his merry band of hackers rifling through your private financial data at the US Treasury. In his late night ruling, US District Judge Paul Engelmayer, cited, “the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking,” and order the destruction of ALL downloaded data taken since January 20.
The ruling comes from a lawsuit filed by a consortium of 19 states attorneys general lead by NY AG Letitia James (yes, THAT Letitia James). A hearing is scheduled for February 14 to further hear the suit and responses.
The judge’s order does nothing to protect our data. The damage has already been done. They have likely made copies or transferred a copy of that data to their own servers or created back doors to continue their access or all of the above. It’s one of the basic “first steps” when you are engaging in such a massive change to such data — create a backup. They do not need to be in the same building with the servers where the data is to access it no more than you need to be physically at your bank to access your bank account to pay bills or make deposits.
The question in my mind is what is their actual goal in stealing our info?
Seems it should now be the responsibility of the various departments of government involved to create protections, but then again, they allowed the breach in the first place. We trusted them with our data and they simply let an unauthorized group of kids led by a deranged nut job walk in and take it without fuss. WTH??? Is this not treason?
1Yeah. That’s nice. Now, does anybody–including the judge who ordered it–think that’s going to stop Musk’s whiz kids from doing whatever they want to do with whatever they already have, or whatever they can grab before they get caught? Me, either. How long is it going to take us to find out exactly what they did, anyway?
2Cue the appropriate idiom: barn door closed after horses are out; cat’s out of the bag; Pandora’s box has been opened; well, that ship has sailed; don’t sell past the close.
In other words, we’re screwed.
3Hope the Feb 14th court session brings absolutely no love and kisses to elongated skum, drumpf and doge.
Wonder what Valentine’s Day will look like at Peeg Hawgsbreath’s home after this….
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/betraying-the-honor-of-your-own-wife-jd-vance-brutally-dragged-for-defending-musk-aide-who-posted-normalize-indian-hate/
Yup, only the best.
4TrumpF said yesterday (in front of the Japanese prime minister) that his musk DOGEs really didn’t need authorization to get your personal information because we have such poor security. So he lets these muskies loose with no security screening into our agencies computer systems. As thatotherjean said, no court order is going to stop them from having your personal information. They were into the agency that oversees payments of medicare, social security and tax refunds already and likely took all of our information already. I’m sure someone in the doj will police their destroying the information they already stole illegally.
5Yes, in othewords, we’re screwed. Gosh, I sure hope trumpF stays safe.
My humblest apologies for naming Hawgsbreath instead of Vance in mediaite link above.
Vance doesn’t know or care that the 25 y/o kid said all these racist things in the past year.
6The rulings of the courts re MuskRats? Perhaps selectively followed. The in-groups will do whatever they please, with little to no consequences. The out groups must comply.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” — Frank Wilhoit
7Along the lines of what Mike from Iowa posted, this is indicative of the trumpF administration being rotten to the core. This from his new under Secretary of State, Darren Beattie. It’s not just their hate of DEI, it’s blatant racism-
On Oct. 4, 2024, Beattie wrote (archived) on X:
“Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.
Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”
Of course he wrote this on X, musk’s platform for magats and white supremacists.
8“…what’s happening in America right now is an attempted autogolpe.
Latin American readers are surely familiar with the term. An autogolpe is literally a ‘self-coup’ — when a legitimately elected leader uses his position to seize total control, eliminating legal and constitutional restraints on his power. Are Musk and *rump trying to pull off an autogolpe here? Of course they are. And they are doing so with, as far as I can tell, the full support of every Republican in the House and the Senate.
You should look at everything they do through that lens. Yes, we can ask whether a policy move makes sense in terms of its announced goals. But you should also always ask, “How does doing this serve the autogolpe?” — Paul Krugman
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/autogolpe
9I agree 110% with y’all about the TrumpMuskian cabal not handling OUR data properly, even if they attempt to comply with the Judge’s orders.
But I damned sure hope that those Judges are specifying exactly how to ‘destroy’ the data in question.
10Simply deleting data means and does almost nothing, to anyone who knows how to simply recover it (and this includes beginner scriptkiddies on up the chain).
Any storage media (memory, drives of all kinds, tapes, etc., need to be thoroughly erased, then utterly destroyed; all done under strict supervision. Nothing less will suffice.
Oh yeah, I don’t know about y’all, but it is sweltering down here in South Texas. My instruments are right now reading 92° freaking Fahrenheit of them, and humidity to match. And it’s been in the 80s and 90s all February, and will continue through the week, until a cool front comes in later.
This isn’t normal. My records go back a number of years, and it sure looks like that ‘dreaded hoax’ (according to the Deniers) of ‘Climate Change Global Warming’ is biting us in the ass.
11If this is an augur of the coming spring and summer, we’ll easily break recent records for the number of days over 100° for the year.
RE: 10 — I heard speculation that hurricane season starts in April now and runs through December, not June 1 and ending on November 30. Probably that’s not true for 2025, but in the near future?
12NOAA and the national weather service are on the trumpF-musk hit list. The new NOAA director appointed by trumpF was instrumental in sharpie gate he made famous. NOAA scientists are concerned about the integrity of the new director. TrumpF-musk also just put a hold on federal fire agencies hiring for the upcoming fire season. They literally want to burn us to the ground and blow us away in the name of getting more tax cuts for billionaire cronies.
13G F & Steve @11, 12,
You’re exactly right guys. WX things are being destroyed right now all over NOAA, which has been one of the prime targets for the RWNJs for decades. They are drooling to privatize OUR NOAA to profit their masters. This would be disastrous for all of us.
.
As a weather nut I follow the topic closely (I run several personal weather/WX stations, PWSs).
The Gulf is now warmer than normal (low 70-80°s), but not yet to the point where hurricanes could develop.
It could very well be in the mid to upper 80s to low 90s by late March or April. That would be nitro for the formation of early Gulf hurricanes (which are historically common). The Atlantic hurricane zones are also warmer than normal.
I very frequently use the many NOAA websites, there have been some glitches lately, signs of those SOBs meddling around.
I’m always sweating the WX out, I have a boat in a Gulf marina (far too big to bring home, ~5 tons, might get it ashore on the stands but that’s always iffy).
And at home wildfires are a continuous danger. We’ve been in severe to extreme drought around here since ~2020. Everything is a tinderbox; and some ahole neighbors have been using fireworks, despite county rules prohibiting them.
https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/
14It had to come about this way. Even the judges realized that Musk would also get their private information. Of course, Musk and Trump will rain Hell on the courts, but the truth is the truth. Even judges – from village to the Supreme Court are fair game for these two hunters.
Maybe, just maybe, the MAGA-ites who are applauding Musk will suddenly wake up and realize that he knows way to much about each on of them! Privacy? What is that? Oh, you mean we once had such a thing? Wonder what happened to it.
15Just gotta say, thanks to Will Shakespeare and his play about Julius Caesar, the truth is – one crown cannot hold two heads. Trump and Musk will not end up as Best Friends Forever. The Bib Bang involved in this truth will resonate for a very, very long time.
16I’m still trying to figure out how my ‘feelings have been coddled’.
But judging from the number of fronts we are now battling this particular many-headed hydra, saying “we’re screwed” is putting it mildly. WTTWT (We tried to warn them!)
17Latest from American Bookies ….
Chances for dying due to Climate Change/Act of Nature increased by 65%.
Chances for dying due to Mass Shooting/Terrorist Attack increased by 70%.
Chances for dying due to Bird Flu/Infectious Disease increased by 75%.
Chances for dying due to Self Inflicted Suicide/Insanity for seeing tRump on the TV all freaking day and night increased by 99%
18I read the dog catcher (make that dog killer)/homeland security ocifer kristi noem wants FEMA closed down. So all you red state magats, don’t complain to us when you get blown away, washed away, burned up that you’ll be on your own.
19Hello!!! FEMA is still on the ground here in Western NC trying to help farmers recover enough to keep producing food for the rest of us….in the reddest part of the county, I might add. Not that anyone in DeeCee cares.
20Lying liar vance questions judges auhority to challenge drumpfuck the dumbfuck’s illegal/uncostitutional moves.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo
21It’s just corporate raiding, refined. The goal is to privatize everything, with plutocrats aiming for the profits of the companies they set up. Look at what happened with the USSR collapse.
22Hope the Greedy Obnoxious Party regrets the day they let trumpF own them.
23Ted, not Cruz @22 exactly! And added with a poisonous blend of Christian Nationalism and White Supremacy.
24Conservative core principle: Privatize the profits, Socialize the losses.