subrealism

Chipocalypse Now - I Love The Smell Of Deportations In The Morning

2025-09-07T08:25:00.004-05:00

sky | Donald Trump has signalled his intention to send troops to Chicago to ramp up the deportation of illegal immigrants - by posting an AI-generated parody image from Apocalypse Now on social media.

There were protests in the city, the largest in Illinois, on Saturday night, with thousands of people marching past Trump Tower to demonstrate against possible immigration raids.

That came as the US president ramped up his threats to deploy federal authorities and military personnel in Chicago, as he has done in Los Angeles and Washington DC.

In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump shared an AI-generated image of himself as a military officer in the movie Apocalypse Now, with the title changed to "Chipocalypse Now" over flames and the city skyline.

The post - a screenshot from X - said: "'I love the smell of deportations in the morning...'. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR."

No Donut Or Coffee Breaks Required...,

2025-09-07T08:20:00.016-05:00

toborlife | A robot rolling through your local shopping plaza might’ve felt like a movie scene just a few years ago.

In 2025, it’s the new normal in southeast Kansas City. Instead of relying only on human security guards, the Brywood Centre has enlisted a high-tech solution: a full-time security robot named Marshall.

Shoppers are noticing the difference. Crime is down. People feel safer.

And it raises a big question: Are robotic patrols the future of public safety?

This trend has generated significant buzz in the robotics world, particularly with interest in gear like the Unitree G1. It’s no surprise.

With features like 360-degree surveillance, facial recognition, and license plate tracking, today’s security bots are more than just mobile cameras, They’re proactive protection tools. And yes, they can run nearly non-stop, powered by durable components like the Unitree G1 battery.

We’ll look at how this real-world deployment shows the potential of robotics in everyday environments and why it’s getting attention from tech buyers and safety experts alike.

Since Marshall was deployed in 2024, it’s been patrolling the parking lot and sidewalks for 23 hours a day. It doesn’t take breaks. It doesn’t blink. And it’s always recording.

The robot’s arrival was meant to help fight a rise in vandalism and theft. It didn’t take long for results to show.

According to the Kansas City Police Department’s crime map, there hasn’t been a single criminal incident reported at the Brywood Centre since the robot went online.

Shoppers have noticed. One local, Karen White, said, “It scared them off.”

That’s not just talk. Several attempted crimes were stopped thanks to Marshall’s monitoring. The robot automatically flags suspicious behavior and sends alerts to law enforcement. It’s also programmed to identify individuals linked to Amber Alerts or criminal databases.

So, How Marshall Keeps Watch?

Marshall is built to move smoothly through public spaces and is packed with intelligent features that work together to protect the area:

360-degree vision: The robot can see in all directions, helping it monitor activity without blind spots. This makes it hard for suspicious behavior to go unnoticed.
Facial recognition: It can scan faces and match them to known criminal databases or active alerts, helping law enforcement take faster action.
License plate reading: Every vehicle entering the lot can be tracked and flagged if necessary, making it easier to prevent or respond to crimes.
Device ID tracking: The bot can detect nearby phones or wearables by identifying their signals, helping pinpoint a person’s location without direct interaction.
Extended patrol duration: Marshall can stay on the move for 23 hours a day, watching the parking lot from every angle. That level of consistency helps visitors feel more secure every time they stop by.

It doesn’t chase people or yell. It just watches, records, and relays data to the proper authorities. That alone is often enough to deter petty crimes.

This kind of system is being closely followed by robotics enthusiasts and public safety officials alike. It’s also why platforms like Toborlife.ai are seeing increased demand for advanced patrol-capable bots, including popular models similar in build and functionality to the Unitree G1 for sale on the site.

Is This Why The Little Dogs Have Been Yapping And Snarling At The Russian Bear?

2025-07-11T15:45:00.006-05:00

newsweek | Russia has discovered huge oil reserves in British territory in Antarctica, according to evidence submitted to the U.K. House of Commons Environment Audit Committee (EAC).

The reserves uncovered contain around 511 billion barrels worth of oil, equating to around 10 times the North Sea's output over the last 50 years.

According to documents discussed in U.K. parliament last week, the discovery was made by Russian research ships in the Weddell Sea, which falls under the U.K.'s claim in Antarctic territory. That claim overlaps with those of Chile and Argentina.

Despite having no territorial claims in Antarctica, Russia, along with the U.S. and China, has been gradually escalating its presence in the region in recent years through various scientific campaigns, establishing five research stations in the territory since 1957.

But concerns are now being raised that Russia is attempting to assert its influence in the area through means other than scientific research.

Antarctica is governed by The Antarctic Treaty, first signed on December 1, 1959, which states that no single country owns the territory and designates the region as a continent devoted to peace and science, meaning all oil developments in the area are prohibited.

But experts have now claimed that Russia could be prospecting parts of Antarctica for oil and gas and surveying the continent for military purposes, violating the Antarctic Treaty.

In a meeting last week, Professor Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at the U.K.'s Royal Holloway College, told the Commons Environment Audit Committee that Russia's actions in the region could "signal a potential threat to the permanent ban on mining."

"There is a worry that Russia is collecting seismic data that could be construed to be prospecting rather than scientific research," he said, adding: "Russia's activities need to be understood as a decision to undermine the norms associated with seismic survey research, and ultimately a precursor for forthcoming resource extraction."

Dodds went on to explain that since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there had been "widespread concern" that Moscow's worsening relationship with the Western world "will spark strategic competition" between countries that will be "ever more explicit in Antarctica".

Such tensions have already begun, with Russia and China blocking attempts by other Antarctic treaty nations to expand marine protected areas in Antarctica in 2022.

USS Harvey Milk To Be Renamed 'USS No Homo'

2025-06-05T14:49:00.006-05:00

babylonbee | The United States Navy announced this morning that the USS Harvey Milk will be officially renamed the USS No Homo.

Christened the 'Harvey Milk' four years ago in honor of the infamous gay sexual predator, the ship's name change reflects a broader effort by military leadership to clarify that the Navy isn't actually that gay.

"Despite the uniforms, the Navy isn't just nancy boys and fairies," said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. "The names of our ships ought to reflect that non-gayness. It's hard enough for them already, wearing their fruity little sailor outfits, without also having their ships named after gay child molesters. Therefore, we have officially renamed the ship the 'No Homo' out of love and care for our Navy brothers. No homo."

Gay rights activists have condemned the decision, stating it is a blatant denial of the truth as the ship is obviously very gay. "Who do you think you're fooling? The ship is a literally called an 'oiler', its whole job is oiling up other ships, and it's docked in San Fran. It's a total flamer," said local activist Mikai Danielson. "Methinks Secretary Hegseth doth protest too much."

At publishing time, Secretary Hegseth had issued an order for everyone to stop calling Navy guys "seamen."

Lil Buckwheat Can't Get A Job But Still Gotta Eat....,

2025-06-04T13:38:00.001-05:00

@hachetteus “Since I left the White House…” 🏛️ Karine Jean-Pierre, the first Black and openly queer White House Press Secretary, is speaking her truth in INDEPENDENT — a raw, urgent book about what it really takes to protect democracy. 👀 Politics without the party lines 📘 Publishing 10/21/25 with Legacy Lit #whitehouse #politics #pride #pridemonth #queer #booktok #book #books ♬ original sound - Hachette Book Group

DailyCaller | Jean-Pierre announced her new book “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines” set to publish in October 2025 on Wednesday. The book, according to her publisher Legacy Lit, encourages Americans to “vote their values and maintain individuality within party lines.”

“Jean-Pierre didn’t come to her decision to be an Independent lightly. She has served two American presidents, Obama and Biden,” the book description from Legacy Lit reads.

“In 2020, she joined Biden’s campaign as a senior adviser, becoming Harris’s chief of staff and then, two years later, White House press secretary. She takes us through the three weeks that led to Biden’s abandoning his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision,” the statement continues.

“In an era of misinformation, disinformation, the regressiveness of social policy, what we’re seeing currently, right now, what I have decided to do, and I really have thought long and hard about this, is to follow my own compass. And that’s what I’ve done, and that’s what this book does,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

“And here’s the truth, and here’s how I will lay it out to you. I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes, and not be so partisan. And the way that I see moving forward in this space that we’re in right now is if you are willing to stand side by side with me, regardless of your political — how you identify politically, and as long as you respect the community that I belong to and vulnerable communities that I respect, I will be there with you. I will be, I will move forward with you,” she continues.

During the Biden administration, Jean-Pierre defended the former president’s fitness as concerns about his declining state grew. Just weeks before Biden dropped out of the race, she decried videos of the former president looking lost and wandering off as “cheap fakes,” claiming they were edited to make the 82-year-old look bad.

Negroe Fatigue

2025-05-19T17:05:00.007-05:00

Our private research universities are not actually purely private...,

2025-04-15T13:09:00.002-05:00

X | Our private research universities are not actually purely private. They are designed to be both a cryptic soft extension of the state (e.g. national security, priming the prosperity pipeline with blue sky research, truth adjudication, etc.), which is also oppositely intended as an independent check on the state and state power in times of abuse as well. This tacit and quiet knowledge, which used to be held at the AAU and the relevant professors, has been mostly lost. So 'overhead' or 'indirect costs' is not actually overhead at all. It is supposed to be cryptic state support based on research merit to avoid political pressure to fund 3rd tier universities at the same level as Princeton.

So the whole system was designed back in the Vannevar Bush era but without leaving the esoteric knowledge with modern academicians. It's a disaster. It was a quiet game which worked brilliantly to serve the nation and its population until lunatics started to get a foothold in the research universities. This is why when you audit this stuff, you see waste. It wasn't ever intended to be what it appears to be: this was the USG paying to have a totally ELITE and EXCLUSIVE quasi-private, quasi-public resource. Think Manhattan project. Think The Jasons. Think winning.

And, despite my deep dislike of how @realchrisrufo has acted towards me, his point is spot on. If the elite U.S. universities are so confused as to think that they are truly 100% private and that they should be allowed to destroy their role of ELITE service to the nation which built them up with federal dollars, that is a moment to remind them of the "Endless Frontier" agreement. First the USG welched on the agreement with the Mansfield Ammendment and Dole Bayh and then IMMACT90. Then the universities welched with DEI. BOTH parties need to get back to the quiet agreement, or the whole thing will just fall apart. And the US research achipeligo is a *MAJOR* part of american greatness which we seem to be about to destroy because we can't figure out how to do this.

[And for those of you who seem to believe that quiet and tacit agreements are always bad, so that the Manhattan Project should have been academic and totally open because 'Sunlight is always the best disinfectant!!', I highly encourage you to use the comment section to complain again about elitism, gatekeeping, Fauci, experts, science, government and credentials. I get it. You can't stop to listen...or think. I totally get you. Looking forward to your vitriol. Just make sure to remind me repeatedly that markets are always right, all tax is theft, DEI is poison, and that Trump and Elon know exactly what they are doing at all times.]

The Hidden Holocausts At Hanslope Park

2025-04-01T00:00:00.017-05:00

radiolab | This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out of the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known, offering a glimpse of histories waiting to be rewritten.

Just down the road from a pub in rural Hanslope Park, England is a massive building — the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known. This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out and offered a glimpse of histories waiting to be rewritten.

When professor Caroline Elkins came across a stray document left by the British colonial government in Nairobi, Kenya, she opened the door to a new reckoning with the history of one of Britain's colonial crown jewels, and the fearsome group of rebels known as the Mau Mau. We talk to historians, archivists, journalists and send our producer Jamie York to visit the Mau Mau. As the new history of Kenya is concealed and revealed, document by document, we wonder what else lies in wait among the miles of records hidden away in Hanslope Park.

Is RFK Jr Being Blackmailed?

2025-03-31T13:18:00.007-05:00

Are American Elites Terrified Of Whitney Webb?

2025-03-31T00:00:00.001-05:00

America May Yet Be Saved By Black Women - Nobody Would've Thought Candace Owens

2025-03-30T11:42:00.003-05:00

So Sick Of Democrat Pum Pum's And Their Endless Whiny Slug Trails....,

2025-03-26T18:14:00.009-05:00

CNN | After the White House argued, repeatedly, that there was no classified information in the now-infamous group chat of national security officials, The Atlantic published it.

CNN reporters annotated the entire chat, which included Hegseth’s description of F-18s and drones preparing to strike targets, which anybody listening in would have known were to occur in Yemen since the name of the chat included the word “Houthi.”

The White House and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth continued to argue, even after release of the chat, that the information wasn’t classified, but only sensitive.

Multiple experts advised on CNN Wednesday that people should not get sidetracked by whether or not the information was classified.

What’s below are the assessments of:

Retired Brigadier Gen. Mark Kimmitt, who during his military career worked as deputy director for strategy and plans for US Central Command, and then worked in the State Department as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs during the George W. Bush administration
and Beth Sanner, a CNN National Security analyst who was deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration during portions of both the first Trump and Joe Biden administrations.

Kimmitt and Sanner both appeared on CNN Wednesday, and I subsequently followed up with Sanner on the phone.

Was classified information shared?

CNN has reported that sources within the Pentagon believe that the information shared by Hegseth, which detailed when, to the minute, US fighters and drones would strike Houthi targets, was clearly classified.

Whether it was technically classified is beside the point, according to Kimmitt.

“I think everybody’s missing the relevant issue,” he said, noting that Hegseth has the authority to declassify Pentagon information.

“If he says it’s not classified, it’s not classified,” Kimmit said. But “the fundamental question that we should be asking is, ‘Should it have been classified?’ And the answer, of course, is yes.”

What should be classified?

“I think we’re watching a lot of bob and weave, instead of just making this simple,” said Sanner, who added that the rule of thumb is that anything that shouldn’t be put into an unclassified email should be treated as classified material.

“Another really easy way to look at this is, ‘If I’m sitting in Moscow or Beijing, would I be happy to get this information and think that I’ve gotten something really interesting?’” she said. Obviously yes.

What’s interesting to adversaries?

First, the military portions of what was shared clearly should not have been shared.

“If there are planes, trains automobiles, whatever, heading toward an attack, it is classified,” Sanner said.

And if Hegseth wants to declassify something, there is a process of documentation that should be followed, she said.

Ratchett Crockett Must Decide Which Of Her False Personalities Is In Charge....,

2025-03-18T00:01:00.012-05:00

@jasmineforus
MAGA can’t find any dirt so they have resorted to being outraged that I attended private school 🤯. I am me, unapologetically! GET A LIFE & start caring about how people are losing their jobs and our economy is tanking!
♬ original sound - Jasmine Crockett

Like A Child Running Away From Home And Going Into The Back Yard Till Dinner Time....,

2025-03-17T17:01:00.004-05:00

Nothing Personal, It's Just Business....,

2025-03-02T17:38:00.000-06:00

▶️ Powerful video here: revealing the deep and dark corruption which has been fueling this disastrous proxy war from the first moment of its inception. Zelensky is a media creation - a puppet of the West, designed to empty Ukraine of its sovereignty, and ultimately its resources… pic.twitter.com/5xH0vbGool
— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) March 1, 2025

La Cucaracha Should've Been Stepped On YEARS AGO!!!

2025-02-28T13:44:00.004-06:00

AG Bondi - Whurr My Epshtein Files At?!?!?!?!

2025-02-28T13:40:00.003-06:00

Can Rachel Maddow Be Far Behind?

2025-02-23T12:31:00.004-06:00

51st State And The Hot MIC Moment

2025-02-22T15:54:00.004-06:00

EXCLUSIVE: @SecRubio on Canada, 51st State and the Hot Mic Moment

HERRIDGE: “In a hot mike moment, Canada’s prime minister said that absorbing Canada “is a real thing.” Is it a real thing?”

SECRETARY RUBIO: “Yeah, look, you know how that came about? President’s meeting with… https://t.co/t5BReWwOiR pic.twitter.com/ALZ8FSDCUx
— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) February 21, 2025

After Four Long Years It Is Once Again Possible To Access The Russian MOD In The U.S.

2025-02-22T11:06:00.004-06:00

eng.mil.ru | Report by Russian Defence Ministry on progress of special military operation (22 February 2025)

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.

In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces hit formations of two territorial defence brigades close to Izbitskoye and Volchansk (Kharkov region).

The AFU lost up to 40 troops, an armoured personnel carrier, an artillery gun, and an electronic warfare station.

As a result of decisive actions, the Zapad Group of Forces liberated Novolyubovka (Lugansk People's Republic).

Russian units hit manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades, an assault brigade of the AFU, and a national guard brigade close to Topoli, Kondrashovka, Golubovka, Novay Kruglyakovka, Borovaya, Shiykovka (Kharkov region), Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic) as well as Serebryansky forestry.

The enemy's losses amounted to more than 200 troops, a U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carrier, five motor vehicles, and five field artillery guns, three of them manufactured by NATO countries. Three electronic warfare stations and an ammunition depot were neutralised.

Units of the Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian troops engaged manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades, an airmobile brigade, two assault brigades of the AFU, and foreign legion units near Seversk, Reznikovka, Slavyansk, Vasyukovka, Kramatorsk, Novomarkovo, Belokuzminovka, Chasov Yar, Stupochki, Konstantinovka, and Ulakly (Donetsk People's Republic).

The AFU losses amounted to up to 220 troops, an infantry fighting vehicle, nine motor vehicles, and six field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm M777 howitzer. One electronic warfare station and one ammunition depot were neutralised.

Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. Ten mechanised brigades, a jaeger brigade, an airmobile brigade, two assault brigades, an assault regiment of the AFU, a marine brigade, and a national guard brigade near Shcherbinovka, Dimitrov, Krasnoarmeysk, Udachnoye, Uspenovka, Novoandreyevka, and Andreyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).

The enemy lost more than 375 troops, four armoured fighting vehicles including a U.S.-made MaxxPro armoured vehicle, five motor vehicles, and seven field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin self-propelled artillery system.

Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing into the depth of enemy defences. A mechanised brigade, an air assault brigade of the AFU, and three territorial defence brigades were hit near Konstantiopol, Bogatyr, Burlatskoye (Donetsk People's Republic), Temirovka, and Gulyaypole (Zaporozhye region).

The AFU losses amounted to up to 160 troops, two tanks including a German-made Leopard tank, three motor vehicles, and two field artillery guns.

The Dnepr Group of Forces engaged manpower and hardware of a mountain assault brigade of the AFU and two territorial defence brigades close to Malaya Tokmachka, Shcherbaki, Lobkovoye (Zaporozhye region), Sadovoye, and Dneprovskoye (Kherson region).

The AFU losses amounted to up to 85 troops, six motor vehicles, an artillery gun, three electronic warfare stations, and an ammunition depot.

Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the infrastructure of military airfields, strike drones stocking and training sites, ammunition and fuel depots of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as well as temporary deployment areas of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 157 areas.

Russian air defence systems shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 aircraft, two French-made Hammer guided bombs, two U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles, and 58 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.

In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 656 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 44,190 unmanned aerial vehicles, 596 anti-aircraft missile systems, 21,698 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,521 MLRS combat vehicles, 21,948 field artillery guns and mortars, and 32,033 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.

Musk To Rehire Marko Elez

2025-02-09T00:00:00.021-06:00

WaPo | Elon Musk, the head of the U.S. DOGE Service, announced Friday that he would rehire a staffer who resigned after he was tied to a social media account with a history of racist posts.

“He will be brought back,” Musk wrote on X, the platform he owns. “To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Into The Microsoft Cloud Equals Into The Maws Of Palantir...,

2025-02-08T11:23:00.003-06:00

CTH | Yes, the Govt is in crisis, and just as sure as you are reading this, the administrators within the IC already have the solution ready to roll.”

♦ RESULT – “We will use advanced technology and non-partisan AI programming, to make the government more efficient and ensure this level of corruption and wasteful spending never happens again.”

Every dollar will be tracked, monitored and oversight will be transparent and available for everyone to see. Just ignore the part where the same efficiency system is monitoring your real ID, connecting your personage to the new govt and private sector interfaces, and click “I agree” on your next federal tax filing. Trust us Comrade citizen, the new technologically advanced DODGE approved govt system cares about responsible stewardship and you. Swear.”

The process starts by downloading government data to an AI enhanced database for review and filtration.

Good Stuff – […] Trump created DOGE through a day one executive order with a stated mission to cut government waste. Musk and his aides have assumed control of federal IT infrastructure as his team swiftly blitzes through departments and agencies. Trump, with Musk’s guidance, this week gutted the United States Agency for International Development and merged it into the State Department. The president has signaled he might try to eliminate the Department of Education by executive order next.

“They’re putting a shot across the administrative state’s bow,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, said last week of the mass federal buyout plan on his “War Room” podcast. “That’s DOGE signaling to you that they’ve got a plan of how to take the personnel down.”

[…] Federal employees who want to remain in the federal workforce were told in the “Fork in the Road” email they must return to in-person work, embrace new “performance standards” and be “reliable, loyal and trustworthy” in their work. The email also warned that most federal departments and agencies will be “downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force.”

On Tuesday, the buyout offer was extended to nearly all employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some federal employees said they were alarmed at the short timeframe they were given to make their decisions.

“I have invested way too much time and energy and interest into my career to just say, ‘hell with it’ and leave when I only have, like, five to 10 years left before I retire,” one federal worker said. “I’m not taking the resigning bait. So, I guess I’ll essentially just ride down with the ship if they decide to get rid of us,” the worker added, though he acknowledged some less experienced colleagues might take the buyout. (more)

The streamlining and downsizing of government through the use of AI systems is a good thing, perhaps a very good thing. However, watch out for deployment into the DHS apparatus because that will give rise to the newly expanded Surveillance State.

Peaceniks don’t build bombs; and those who genuinely believe in liberty do not build nor support domestic surveillance networks that can be weaponized depending on who is in power.

The DOGE Terror Alert In Washington DC Is Priceless

2025-02-08T11:07:00.005-06:00

JONATHAN TURLEY ON DOGE: THE TERROR ALERT IN WASHINGTON IS QUITE ASTONISHING

“You have people all over the Beltway breathing in paper bags right now because of the idea that they could bring in these people, and that they're going to think outside the box.

That's what Musk is… pic.twitter.com/vYF3vDML0t
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 7, 2025

Swamp Critters Tryna Cancel The DOGE By Cancelling Its Young Worker Bees...,

2025-02-07T09:35:00.005-06:00

pro publica | On President Donald Trump’s authority alone, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. Employees from Musk’s companies and those of his allies, as well as young staffers he’s recruited, are wresting authority from career workers and commandeering computer systems.

While some have been public about their involvement, others have attempted to keep their roles secret, scrubbing LinkedIn pages and other sources of data. With little information from the White House, ProPublica is attempting to document who is involved and what they are doing.

Musk’s team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, has already thrown entire swaths of the federal government and its programs into disarray — programs that serve millions of Americans.

Musk himself has made no secret of his intentions, saying that DOGE is a “wood chipper for bureaucracy” and that he is “deleting” agencies.

A White House spokesperson wrote, “Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.” None of the people identified responded to requests for comment.

The DOGE Is The Repurposed United States Department of Digital Services...,

2025-02-07T09:33:00.017-06:00

wired | As one of his first acts after being sworn in, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by reorganizing and renaming an existing entity, the US Digital Services (USDS), as the US DOGE Service. And while some have noted that this version of DOGE moves away from the sweeping vision of deregulation outlined in a November Wall Street Journal op-ed, it's a move that will give centibillionaire Elon Musk and his allies seemingly unprecedented insight across the government, and access to troves of federal data.

“It’s quite a clever way of integrating DOGE into the federal government that I think will work, in the sense of giving it a platform for surveillance and recommendations,” says Richard Pierce, a law professor at George Washington University.

Soon after his election victory, Trump announced that he would form DOGE, led by Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, to provide "advice and guidance from outside the government"—something that would generally require it be formed as a federal advisory committee. The idea was that DOGE would provide recommendations for how to cut some $2 trillion from the federal budget. (Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, Ramaswamy exited the DOGE project.)

Musk put out a call for people to work with DOGE online, and turned the Washington, DC office of his company SpaceX into a staging ground for the entity while bringing in other major figures from Silicon Valley to assist in the effort. Billionaire investor Marc Andreessen apparently joined the effort as a self-proclaimed “unpaid intern.”

But under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, committees of the sort DOGE seemed to be shaping up to have several legal requirements, including making all meetings publicly accessible and requiring a diversity of perspectives on the committee itself. By repurposing the USDS, which was already part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Trump managed to skirt both the requirements of a formal advisory committee and the Congressional oversight required when creating a new federal agency. In short, it meant DOGE would get more access to sensitive data than an advisory committee would likely have, while offering less transparency.

The USDS was created by former president Barack Obama to untangle dysfunctional or failing technology across the federal government in the wake of the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. The Service’s mandate allows it the wide-ranging ability to enter any government agency and access its software or technical systems with the goal of helping to streamline or reform existing systems.

Under the executive order, DOGE teams, which “will typically include one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney” will be dispatched to various agencies. They will be granted “access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems,” ostensibly with the goal of streamlining data sharing across federal agencies.

A former USDS employee who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity called the repurposing of the Digital Service an “A+ bureaucratic jiu-jitsu move.” But, they say, they’re concerned that DOGE’s access to sensitive information could be used to do more than just streamline government operations.

“Is this technical talent going to be pointed toward using data from the federal government to track down opponents?” they ask. “To track down particular populations of interest to this administration for the purposes of either targeting them or singling them out or whatever it might end up being?”