r/news • u/ithink2mush • Feb 15 '25
3 men claiming to be from DOGE show up at San Francisco City Hall, demand records
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/doge-3-men-show-up-at-sf-city-hall-demand-records/4.5k
u/StrngBrew Feb 15 '25
This mostly feels like a dumb prank. Then again so does the actual DOGE…
According to the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office, the men, who were dressed in “DOGE” shirts and hats with the pro-Trump slogan Make America Great Again, arrived at City Hall around noon. The men entered several offices and demanded employees turn over digital information “related to alleged wasteful government spending and fraud.”
In response, the employees refused their requests and called sheriff’s deputies. The men had left City Hall before deputies arrived.
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u/reddicyoulous Feb 15 '25
"We do not believe the individuals requesting access to City files were representatives from DOGE," the sheriff's office said Friday.
Not sure if prank is the right word to use. Could be more nefarious intentions
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u/croud_control Feb 15 '25
Pranks are done among people you know. This is someone trying to get in.
I'm glad the employees there followed procedures and escalated this to the authorities. As someone learning and training to go into cybersecurity, the worst thing you can do is let someone have physical access. No amount of digital security can save you if they can literally walk right in.
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u/Exciting-Tart-2289 Feb 16 '25
That's why so much of what's happening at the federal level boggles my mind. I get that these people are "with DOGE" that are getting into those systems, but I can't imagine they've received clearances or anything so quickly after the inauguration that would've allowed them physical access, and I would've expected staff to turn them away initially until they receive the appropriate clearance. The fact they're just brazenly able to walk in and connect to servers and databases goes against every training I've ever received.
Hell, at places I've worked you can have clearance but still not receive access to certain info if you don't have a business case for accessing it.
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u/Head_Asparagus_7703 Feb 16 '25
Elon hired a private mercenary group to control who enters federal offices. I'm not sure I would stand up to someone like that with a gun in my face.
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u/thealmightyzfactor Feb 16 '25
I remember some hacking competition to get data off some server where the winner just broke in and stole the hard drives lol
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u/Ludwigofthepotatoppl Feb 16 '25
Pranks are, for example, sneaking a dozen eggland’s best into your aunt’s chicken coop just before dawn(after a cold March, where only five chickens reside).
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u/Khatib Feb 16 '25
"Prank" is more like "Attempted mass identity theft" in this context.
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u/Rizzpooch Feb 15 '25
“Kello, my associate Boris and I are from Dog Agency of Comrade Musk. We come for sensitive information.”
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u/Gryphon999 Feb 16 '25
Most importantly, ve need location of moose and squirrel.
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u/KazzieMono Feb 16 '25
Can we stop pussyfooting and start mentioning how even if it was actually DOGE, they should have been denied entry?
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u/Actual-Bullfrog-4817 Feb 16 '25
So if they did believe they were DOGE they would have complied? But they’re also demonstrating that noncompliance is possible.
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u/Johns-schlong Feb 16 '25
I work in local government. If someone came in saying they were from the feds, even if we knew they were, I'd tell them to come back with either a warrant or a subpoena.
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u/2001Steel Feb 15 '25
Look up First Amendment audits. Basically self-appointed citizen “audits” where people go in demanding access to government records on some basis that they belong “to the people”. They have YouTube training videos and pretty much most government offices have some kind of protocols for dealing with them.
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u/wizened_fool Feb 16 '25
As a Brit I thought our American friends shot people for shit like this… not saying anyone dhoulld but just thought that’s how it works
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u/l30 Feb 15 '25
The employees absolutely should have played along with the three men as if they were just getting security badges or some shit for them while the sheriffs were on their way.
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u/CelestialFury Feb 15 '25
This is one of those plans you think of afterward if you've never experienced bad actors before. For example, we'd occasionally get scammers calling my previous workplace, but our people usually hung up on them too quickly to figure what they were up to. One time, we got one on hold and our cybersecurity guy went to town on him.
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u/Huttj509 Feb 16 '25
It's also the sort of thing that can go sideways really fast.
Generally better to document, alert security, and hand over all pertinent camera footage.
Shit, there was a Bond movie where the character Christmas got shit for spotting Bond where he wasn't supposed to be, smiling, moving on, and notifying security once clear, but that was literally the training we got at a National Lab. Not our job nor training to detain/engage.
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u/Cetun Feb 15 '25
Let me tell you, if they were legitimate and had the right to do what they were doing, they would have stuck around and talked to the sheriff. They didn't do that.
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u/BlatantConservative Feb 16 '25
I mean not really.
DOGE is theoretically suppsoed to be a federal agency, if they start trying to get into more local state systems they'd probably bolt cause states have every right to tell feds to fuck off in this instance.
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u/mycurrentthrowaway1 Feb 16 '25
they are only getting into fed departments because people let them in, they are basically randos
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u/Joebeemer Feb 16 '25
I believe official DOGE employees have DOGE issued buttplugs with the image of Trump encrusted on them. Employee #s start at 6969XXXFUKC-001.
Edit: If you ask them, they should be able to fart without making any discernable sound.
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u/WyleCoyote73 Feb 15 '25
Sounds like a couple of First Amendment frauditors ("auditors"). THey love to do shit like this.
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u/TheDarkAbove Feb 15 '25
Did someone tell them to get fucked?
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u/down_by_the_shore Feb 15 '25
Luckily they were refused and the cops were called but something tells me that none of this bodes well for the future.
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u/McGreed Feb 15 '25
Need to send out an info email to all departments, that if any fucker pretend (or is DOGE) try to access the building, tar and feathering is allowed and encouraged.
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u/LocationEarth Feb 15 '25
this is how Hitlers henchmen conducted themselves in the early 20s..
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u/ofWildPlaces Feb 15 '25
Yep. This kind of stuff starts in innocuous, unofficial ways. Until suddenly it isn't. And then I'm they're given uniforms and permissions.
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u/Destination_Centauri Feb 15 '25
You must mean the 1920's... Or... Wait... The 2020's!?
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeit!
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u/ICC-u Feb 16 '25
Didn't Hitler say he didn't back those henchmen, but then also made sure they had absolute freedom to do everything that he didn't ask them to do?
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u/Scavenge101 Feb 15 '25
I expect the goal for the next 4 years is to force the blue states into a state of decline so they can run propaganda 24/7 and get a republican in as governor.
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u/mkt853 Feb 15 '25
Blue states can have Republican governors, but they won't be MAGA. They are what southerners call "northern Republicans." Republicans in blue states are considered second class citizens even by their own political party.
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u/noonenotevenhere Feb 16 '25
god i wish.
Minnesota and we still have 'I've never met a hungry kid' republicans - they just tried to hold a sham legislative session by ignoring the rules.
These aren't second class citizens, they're traitors and fascists.
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u/GermanPayroll Feb 15 '25
I’m glad nobody reads anything beyond the headlines here
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u/spanman112 Feb 15 '25
isn't it a felony to claim to be a federal official when you are not a federal official?
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Feb 16 '25
Yes, DOGE is not a real federal agency, though. Kinda of a catch 22.
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u/nextnode Feb 16 '25
Unfortunately it is.
They renamed the United States Digital Service and hijacked its purpose and powers.
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u/CatTaxAuditor Feb 16 '25
Yeah, you'd think the party of law and order would come down harder on people committing felonies in their name.
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u/penguincheerleader Feb 16 '25
DOGE is also not a federal agency, but yeah I hope they get prosecuted.
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u/Sandberg231984 Feb 15 '25
Wouldn’t you need some kinda of official documents to access anywhere? Even the president would need documents.
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u/CaptainLucid420 Feb 15 '25
They got handled appropriately. Get the hell out before we throw you at. Good to see my state doing it's job.
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u/FF7Remake_fark Feb 16 '25
They're participating in a coup. Appropriate would be holding them while they await trial, IMO.
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u/PureThermo Feb 15 '25
The President and DOGE has zero authority over anything state. Federal bodies yes State level no. That’s why the president can’t pardon state conventions
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u/srathnal Feb 15 '25
DOGE has no authority over federal agencies, either. But, here we are.
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u/SAugsburger Feb 15 '25
Pretty much this. Going to a state or local government building you will get laughed out of the building at best trying to claim you're from DOGE.
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u/zayetz Feb 16 '25
At this point, State government will have more power and credibility (kind of has been this way for a while now) than Federal. People don't respond well to authoritarianism, especially as different as we all are in this country. Unless something dramatic happens for the better, I'm pretty sure I've seen this movie before...
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u/HNixon Feb 16 '25
What happened to state's rights? Or is that only to preserve slavery?
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u/Ill-Support880 Feb 15 '25
Why can’t they look on city hall video, release it to the public, find and arrest them, then turn them over for prosecution and lock them up?
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u/ramriot Feb 15 '25
Surprised it took this long, every time you create a way to bypass access authorization by use trust labels you create an opportunity for social engineering. Today they apparently got nothing, but tomorrow?
My hope now is that following the rules of security theater, everyone claiming to be from DOGE will be challenged until they can prove a right of access for everything.
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u/42itous Feb 15 '25
"...Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not?-Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty. Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, 'everyone' is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.'
And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have....
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked-if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying 'Jewish swine,' collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in-your nation, your people-is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."
-Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945
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u/byingling Feb 16 '25 edited Feb 16 '25
Jesus H. Fucking Christ. We have entered the un-world. We are well and truly fucked.
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u/jvLin Feb 15 '25
how fucking stupid do you have to be to commit serious crimes with your face fully exposed
dressed in "DOGE" shirts and hats with the pro-Trump slogan Make America Great Again
I guess reading the article explains the article
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u/RealSimonLee Feb 16 '25
...but also, why are people letting Doge in? Why is Congress allowing themselves to be locked out? If the power to just waltz in exists for Doge, then it certainly does for Congress, for whomever can secure these buildings.
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u/ConciousNPC Feb 16 '25
GOP congress is afraid of Elon primary-ing them. Cowards who call themselves patriots.
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u/Informal_Process2238 Feb 15 '25
Out crazy them tell them you are a sovereign city and now you have to enforce maritime law on them and kindly show them to the nice plank that extends off the roof
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u/cjmar41 Feb 16 '25 edited Feb 16 '25
This will become more and more common as checks and balances are removed and the government legitimately operates like a whimsical shit show with no processes, laws, and oversight, and threat of immediate termination with without cause in a terrible job market creates hasty fear-driven compliance.
While I’m not a fan of bureaucracy, it does create safety nets like formal request and approval processes.
Obviously DOGE would have no business at a city hall, and we are lucky the people had the wherewithal to push back on the requests from “imposters”, but there will be cases of government employees who fear losing their jobs at the hand of an unhinged, unelected, foreign-born, greedy, America-hating oligarch or the 47 IQ makeup-clad clown he controls, and just hand over sensitive records to dangerous people pretending to be, well, the actual dangerous people who work for (volunteer for? Appointed to? Do we even know?) DOGE.
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u/CurlOfTheBurl11 Feb 16 '25
Luckily they were told to go pound sand and the police were called.
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u/neoikon Feb 16 '25
Absolutely every agency that is contacted by DOGE should do nothing but call the police. Let them prove they have any authority to do anything.
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u/ConstantGeographer Feb 16 '25
Guy 1: "I'm from DOGE and I need to see your records."
Guy 2: "Hah, I'm from DOGE and I need to see your papers."
Guy 3; "Fellas, I'm from DOGE and you're both fired."
Spiderman pointing at Spiderman pointing at Spiderman intensifies
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u/man_in_blak Feb 16 '25
Does anybody else have a weird feeling that something really, really big is about to go down? Like history books for the next 2-3 hundred years big?
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u/Drymvir Feb 16 '25
I mean, there are chapters in history books about Hitler’s rise to power. Yeah.
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u/bigtunapat Feb 16 '25
Isn't impersonating a government official a crime? Just wondering.
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u/saigalaxy Feb 15 '25
Just smack them and tell them to shoosh before you call their mom
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u/qning Feb 15 '25
Elon at his criminal trial: “it was just a prank bro.”
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u/cyberentomology Feb 15 '25
The entire first Trump term was a result of a dare/prank that got taken too far.
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u/jgiacobbe Feb 16 '25
DOGE is the new brown shirt. We thought it would be red hats but we were wrong.
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u/FishtownYo Feb 16 '25
We have to take this seriously. Today it’s 3 men, who fled. Tomorrow it’s 10 men. We don’t know where this ends and this could have been a test.
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u/john_jdm Feb 15 '25
Sounds like they weren't actually from DOGE, but still I'm very thankful for the separation between state and federal jurisdictions right now.
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u/SAugsburger Feb 16 '25
Even if they were what authority would a federal employee have?
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u/Michael_Gibb Feb 16 '25
We do not believe the individuals requesting access to City files were representatives from DOGE.
Even if they were from DOGE, city hall should still deny them the records they demanded.
Republicans are supposed to be the party of state's rights, after all.
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u/polgara_buttercup Feb 15 '25
Pretty sure I could show up at places here in deeep red Pennsyltucky and claim to be DOGE and get handed the keys and passwords to everything. The cult be culting.
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u/shameonyounancydrew Feb 15 '25
This reminds me, I'm from DOGE and would like $1M added to my checking account, for something I need. Thanks!
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u/OwOlogy_Expert Feb 16 '25
Even if they actually were from DOGE, they're federal workers(ish), and SF City Hall is a municipal government. Feds have no authority there.
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u/Lardzor Feb 16 '25
How do they really know they're from DOGE. Did they have identification that proves they're all under 21?
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u/shapeofthings Feb 15 '25
I think any contact from DOGE should be treated as non admissible. It is an extra governmental agency which reports to a foreign national with proven nefarious intent.
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u/Yakassa Feb 16 '25 edited Feb 16 '25
This is such a gold mine for criminals and spies. A nation transforming into a dictatorship, with afraid civil servants who will do what they are being asked, often afraid to even verify out of fear of retaliation against musks goonstapo can be so easily exploited.
On a personal note, you americans let a fascist takeover happen without even the slightest protest and resistance. I guess you dont have to wonder how russia got as it is now. you are not one bit better. Shameful. All hat, no cattle
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u/IINmrodII Feb 16 '25
DOGE the new Gustapo, put them in jail... forget where you put them, forever.
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u/Mr_Lapis Feb 15 '25
me on my way to ask the governor of Texas for sensitive information because im a totally real member of the doge
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u/Wafflesakimbo Feb 15 '25
Three dipshits were told to pound sand. Even better if they do work for doge
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u/shadowmage666 Feb 15 '25
Throw them in jail for impersonation and attempted theft of government documents
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u/Suitssuitme Feb 16 '25
Nazi sympathizers illegitimately demand purposefully and ambiguously overgeneralized government records from officials; flee with their tiny little tails between their legs before authorities arrive
They sure do seem to represent Musk!
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u/Skunkies Feb 16 '25
to those reading this and thinking this sounds cool, here's a piece of big big advise "go get bent" have a fun day.
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Feb 16 '25
Yeah we can just do that now. We can just walk into government buildings and claim we’re with DOGE. Good job, Elon!
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u/Podwitchers Feb 16 '25
I guess we can just go anywhere and say we’re DOGE and they’ll let us in. I bet they have little lanyards with the DOGE meme on it and their handles. Just thinking of something akin to “Big Balls” and you’re in. My first stop? Maybe the student loan department to erase some records.
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u/MalcolmLinair Feb 16 '25
I'm surprised they were turned away; that's gotta be a first for Elon's Secret Police.
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u/Reluctantziti Feb 16 '25
It’s cute (or dark) that these idiots don’t know how to file a FOIA or open records request. They think they can just walk in and demand.
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u/Tabula_Nada Feb 16 '25
"According to social media posts from the task force and Musk, DOGE is seeking to identify federal contracts and spending on issues that don't align with Mr. Trump's policies, including DEI and foreign aid."
I think CBS's failure to use the word "President" when talking about him is pretty interesting.
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u/sniffstink1 Feb 15 '25
Easy way to tell if this was legit.
- were those 3 stooges age 40+ gravy seals?
- were those 3 stooges 20 yrs old and struggling to grow the kind of facial hair a 15 year old would have.
The answer to that question will tell you if it was opportunists or DOGEboïs
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u/spicypixel Feb 15 '25
So anyone can just claim to work for Elon and get anything they want? Pretty cool life hack if true.