“Definitely never seen this type of response to a FOIA request,” quipped one journalist.
Why not post the actual CNN article? https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/18/politics/opm-privacy-team-fired/index.html
CNN is sympathetic to fascists. I’m happy to not give them a click.
Could use the Wayback Machine
Common dreams headline is funnier and more succinct.
One thing I would like to say for people who aren’t familiar and won’t read the article:
Every federal agency has its own FOIA team, in this case the OPM FOIA team was slaughtered and flayed for sport. It’s possible other agency’s FOIA teams were removed, but also more likely that they still exist. This wasn’t a blanket death of all FOIA, just the death of arguably the most important FOIA team
OPM is the most important? I don’t even know that acronym
I would argue FOIA requests on the intelligence community is the most important
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Intelligence Communities work with classified stuff more than anyone. You may only FOIA unclassified stuff so the information and documents you can FOIA is limited
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OPM is the most important at the moment as they are the office primarily under attack and being abused by Elon Musk and DOGE. They are the vehicle that Musk is using and abusing to try and destroy all Federal workers across every agency.
FOIA requests of the intelligence community is still super important. We only learn about the illegal shit they do about 30 years later, but I would argue that’s extremely important for historians and preventing it from happening in the future
You hear about the illegal things federal agencies do almost entirely because there is a standard automatic declassification date that is about 25 years after report creation for most agencies. See Executive Order 13526 from Obama for more info as to why. Similar orders existed prior to Obama, but generally for longer time-frames than 25 years.
But understand that the actual spooky stuff gets reviewed at the end of those 25 years, and does not get declassified. It gets determined to be a “continuing threat to the safety of the United States”, and remains classified. This is the vehicle that a majority of JFK and MLK’s assassination files have been recurringly re-upped for over 50 years (up until Trump’s recent EO demanding the files get released [which is an absurdly terrible way to get these files declassified IMO but I guess we’ll see how it goes]). All it takes to justify making a report “not ready for declassification” is the agency director’s say-so, which can be for any reason including that it would foster a bad view on the federal government and/or it’s agencies from its citizens.
Anyways, this usually leads to FOIA requests on intelligence agencies (some agencies more than others) being nearly useless, because anything spicy will not be labeled unclassified and released to you. I think it’s still a good idea to submit FOIA’s to them anyway because it’s always fun to make the FOIA offices squirm with their 100th annual request for information on Bigfoot, and it’s not illegal (yet!) to do so.
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OPM is the most important in the “keeps the gears of the government moving” sense. It’s basically the federal government’s HR department. Without OPM, no federal workers get hired, get paid, etc… It’s not glamorous or politically charged work, which is why you rarely hear about them. But they recently hit the news because Elon kicked their doors in and illegally installed his own servers to capture personal data about every single federal worker.
Office of Personnel Management, basically oversees all US Gov employees.
This is very common for Muskolini, any press contacts are often let go, makes obtaining damning information impossible/improbable. None of his companies staff a PR department as far as I know. Why anybody puts up with this guy and his companies is beyond me.
Muskolini
Sounds like a pasta. A shitty pasta.
The word Duce (a title used by Mussolini - il duce) and Doge, have the same Latin etymology
The word is from the Venetian language, reaching English via French. Doge, along with the related English word duke and the Italian duce, duca (masculine) and duchessa (feminine) all descend from the Latin dux, meaning either “spiritual leader” or “military commander”.
No, absolutely not. I’m sorry, but that’s a bullshit false cognate that gives Musk way too much credit. The reality is much simpler, and stupider: it’s just a meme misspelling of “dog” that, even in its initial conception, was canonically coined by an idiot.
The etymology of “dog” is admittedly a little mysterious, but I can’t find anything at all to suggest it’s even slightly related to “dux.”
He’s right in that there’s a word doge (as in Doge of Venice) that matches what he said. I don’t think I’d consider it a false cognate, but a true cognate to a different word with an unrelated etymology. They just happen to be spelt and pronounced identically.
I don’t think I’d consider it a false cognate, but a true cognate to a different word with an unrelated etymology.
That’s literally the definition of “false cognate.”
No, a false cognate is a word with similar sound and meaning but different origin/etymology.
Doge (of Venice) - duke - dux - duca - duce
All true cognates, he’s perfectly correct there.
There’s no similarity to the meaning of the doge meme at all. The word sounds the same and is spelled the same, but has a different meaning. Therefore not a false cognate. You might get to a false cognate if you make the connection that DOGE (government organization) is somehow a mid-level ruler of something, but as you say that’s probably giving Musk too much credit.
It could be a false friend though.
You might get to a false cognate if you make the connection that DOGE (government organization) is somehow a mid-level ruler of something, but as you say that’s probably giving Musk too much credit.
Right. That’s the connection the guy I replied to was trying to make, that’s what I called a false cognate, and you’ve now agreed with me that I was correct in doing so.
I never said that “Doge (of venice)” was a false cognate of duce/duke/dux. I said that DOGE of the fucking shiba inu meme/edgelord government wrecking agency was a false cognate of it.
Tangent: I believe I was taught in school false friends were cognates. Learned that on here a month ago.
Mom and dad are fighting again 😟
Huh til doge was from HSR
It is irony at its finest.
Like rain on your wedding day.
Same thing happened with the Twitter takeover.
All the official, PR/Communications staff were fired or quit, nobody had any idea what any actual policy changes were real or not.
They were already doing this in the first Trump term. They started clearing out a lot of the science-focused agencies, telling numerous agencies they couldn’t release ANY statements without approval from on-high. That was literally almost a decade ago now.
Holy shit, I called it.
I thought they’d have Congress do it, but this was more efficient, so yay?
Who needs Congress when the supreme Court is behind you?
They already know the Supreme Court is too slow. By the time it lands on their desk, the damage was already done a long time ago.
And the supreme Court will also side with them anyways. It’s been stacked conservative over the years on purpose. When you lose the courts you lose the country. Look at what has happened with India and Pakistan over the years with their meddling with their legal systems.
So it seems like CNN doesn’t follow the news of the day do they? To my recollection Trump had DOGE actions covered under the Presidential Records system so they are classified for a number of years and not allowed to be requested by FOIA requests until that time passes. So as of now their request would just be denied anyway.
You know, Totally Transparent Government™©® things… Definitely not doing anything wrong that needs to be hidden right?
Slight clarification, presidential records are subject to foia a few years after the presidency. But yes, transparent in the way that Elon “jail CNN for badmouthing doge” musk is a free speech absolutist.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) applies to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) five years after the President has left office.
https://www.archives.gov/news/topics/presidential-records-act
EDIT: thinking about this more, you can definitely foia the clearances he had from SpaceX contracts. You know, back when he smoked weed on Joe Rogans podcast and got absolutely no consequences.
Thanks for the clarification! I’ll make an edit for that
I mean, next next Democratic president can declassify them (that is, if there is a next election)
💩 coming soon
🎶 Doo doo doo🎶 its an oligarchy 🎶 doo doo doo 🎶 it’s happening right now 🎶 tell your friends.
I’m confused with the “doo doo doo”, so I’m just gonna read your comment to the tune of “baby shark”
Here I’ll add the notes emoji
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this isnt new. The US was founded by Oligarchs. It always has been an oligarchy.
What’s new is the slip into fascism. We haven’t seen that since between the two world wars (read Smedly Butler)
Removed by mod
Filter me too. I don’t want arrogant pricks to think they they can have only the conversation they want off of others work.
What’s this? I can have what ever conversations I’d like. You’d fit right in with the “free speech absolutionist crowd” why don’t you join them.
Yeah and you can also get backlash for it. You aren’t immune to it.
Until you block everyone and then you will just miss them talking behind your back you still have to deal with responses to your actions.You are being a jerk. So block me too. Cause I won’t block you but I will call you out for being a jerk as I see it.
This was planned and on purpose.
It’s hard to keep track of everything getting killed.
With this one now the transparency they’re touting so much has been cut off at source. What next?
