7 ms·

One of the USDS project selection criteria is that we prioritize work that based on what will do the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the grea

by spoon16 10y ago

One of the USDS project selection criteria is that we prioritize work that based on what will do the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the greatest need. I do not believe a Muslim Registry does any good for anyone. Being involved in building one would require formally changing our values which would be visible to everyone in USDS. Disclaimer: personal opinion, I am currently serving on a USDS team, my term is up in June of '17

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> One of the USDS project selection criteria is that we prioritize work that based on what will do the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the greatest need The USDS is a taxpayer-funded public entity. The "greatest good..." is determined by the law, written by our duly elected representatives. You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law. If the Congress passes a law you disagree with, you must follow it or resign--those are the only options, per your civil service oath.
- foota 10y ago
  Sure if the President ordered the USDS to do it, they would have to (I believe they are under the executive branch?) But I don't believe that direct of control is generally taken by the office.
  - chris11 10y ago
    Trump will not be a normal President. I'm expecting he will either be really hands off or micromanage depending on the situation. So I could see Trump getting involved with the USDS if they made the news somehow.
    - NicoJuicy 10y ago
      Trump isn't smart enough to micromanage, he hires smart people though. Which is good enough to look smart in the eyes of the public
      - hueving 10y ago
        It takes very little intelligence to micromanage. Doing it effectively is a different story, but anyone can bark orders to underlings easily.
- learc83 10y ago
  > you must follow it or resign--those are the only options, per your civil service oath. Those aren't your only options. Your other options are to stay in and leak information. Stay in and try to damage the project etc... I don't know what I'd do if I were in the position to damage, delay, or stop something as blatantly unconstitutional as a Muslim registration database, but I hope that I'd be able to muster to the courage to do so. The civil service oath requires you to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" I understand that constitutionality is determined by the Supreme Court, but if the government attempts to create a Muslim registration, they've crossed the line and it's time to act.
  - stale2002 10y ago
    Then they should have acted 8 years ago, because the "Muslim registery" already exists under Obama
    - myrion 10y ago
      Surely you have evidence of this?
      - stale2002 10y ago
        Sure. The program has a name. It is called NSEERS. The info about it is all available publicly.
        resfirestar 10y ago
        The statements of candidate Trump suggested a system far broader in scope than NSEERS to cover US citizens. The Kobach plan to reinstate NSEERS (it was halted in 2011) would presumably involve more invasive point of entry procedures for more countries. Whichever way it is, the real time to stop NSEERS was when it started in 2002. Since that didn't happen, it didn't stop until 2011. So yes, it is a good time to complain about religious profiling when a new administration is planning to institute it.
    - 10y ago
- trentmb 10y ago
  > you must follow it or resign--those are the only options, per your civil service oath. What's the difference between bureaucratic incompetence and sabotage?
  - kristianc 10y ago
    Building it in MongoDB would probably give plausible deniability.
    - akmiller 10y ago
      ...or use ElasticSearch as your store of durable record
      - bpicolo 10y ago
        Better yet memcached
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  > You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law. You kind of do. If you're ordered to do something that seems in conflict with the law and/or Constitution, you have a responsibility to not leave, to oppose that unlawful or unconstitutional action. That may require you remaining in place. If you leave, all that's left behind are the sort of non-thinking automatons I was surrounded by at one job for the AF who "were just following orders". They will follow the unlawful and unconstitutional orders and our experiment fails. Your obligation as a public servant in this country is not to the President or to the Congress, but to the People by way of the Constitution and those things which are permitted by it. Orders aren't obligations if they're orders to do things we shouldn't be doing.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    You neglect the possibility of a legal, constitutional order with which one disagrees (neither the law nor the Constitution forbids all bad things). For a member of the civil service, one's choice, then, is to obey or to resign. For the military, of course, there is no choice: one obeys.
    - landryraccoon 10y ago
      I certainly hope you are wrong about the military. If the generals that lead the military attempt a coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of the US I would expect every loyal soldier to disobey those orders.
- X86BSD 10y ago
  "You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law." 1. Jury nullification. 2. Police discretionary powers.
- scott_s 10y ago
  I feel that is a rigid and too literal take on how government works. At any given time, there are more laws to enforce and enact than people and other resources to enforce and enact them. Deciding what exactly to enforce or enact is - in other words, their priorities - is often left up to individual agencies. For example, the Obama administration prioritized immigration enforcement by targeting those found at the border, or those who committed crimes [1]. In another instance, marijuana use is illegal under federal law, but some local laws allow it, and the Obama administration explicitly deprioritized enforcement in such cases [2]. Finally, I think there are valid cases where individuals within government should exercise their own judgement and resist direct orders if they feel they are unjust. One such case is when Governor Schwarzenegger ordered the pay reduction (down to federal minimum wage) of 200,000 state employees until the state legislature agreed on a budget [3]. The person who was supposed to enact this order, state controller John Chiang, resisted. "Under Schwarzenegger’s plan, the workers would receive their full salaries once a budget was approved. But California had enough cash in its accounts, and, in Chiang’s view, the Governor’s move could violate the Fair Labor Standards Act. Moreover, he thought, it was cruel. It was the height of the financial crisis, and mortgage defaults were up more than a hundred per cent over the previous year." [3] [1] http://www.npr.org/2016/08/31/491965912/5-things-to-know-about-obamas-enforcement-of-immigration-laws http://www.npr.org/2016/08/31/491965912/5-things-to-know-abo... [2] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/president-obama-marijuana-users-high-priority-drug-war/story?id=17946783 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/president-obama-marijuan... [3] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/resisting-trump-from-inside-the-government http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/resisting-trump...
- mindcrime 10y ago
  The "greatest good..." is determined by the law, written by our duly elected representatives. You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law. Sure you do. Our "duly elected representatives" are bullshit and have no special standing at all. The State imposes itself on us whether we like it or not, and we are all, as individuals, certainly entitled to oppose its abuses in any way we can.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- vkou 10y ago
  "You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law." Every presidential administration since time immemorial begs to differ.
RA_Fisher 10y ago
Eek. I must admit I was hoping for for a response more like, "What? Hell no. It'd be civil disobedience time if that ever happened." :-(

by spoon16 10y ago

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

> One of the USDS project selection criteria is that we prioritize work that based on what will do the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the greatest need The USDS is a taxpayer-funded public entity. The "greatest good..." is determined by the law, written by our duly elected representatives. You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law. If the Congress passes a law you disagree with, you must follow it or resign--those are the only options, per your civil service oath.

foota 10y ago
Sure if the President ordered the USDS to do it, they would have to (I believe they are under the executive branch?) But I don't believe that direct of control is generally taken by the office.
- chris11 10y ago
  Trump will not be a normal President. I'm expecting he will either be really hands off or micromanage depending on the situation. So I could see Trump getting involved with the USDS if they made the news somehow.
  - NicoJuicy 10y ago
    Trump isn't smart enough to micromanage, he hires smart people though. Which is good enough to look smart in the eyes of the public
    - hueving 10y ago
      It takes very little intelligence to micromanage. Doing it effectively is a different story, but anyone can bark orders to underlings easily.
learc83 10y ago
> you must follow it or resign--those are the only options, per your civil service oath. Those aren't your only options. Your other options are to stay in and leak information. Stay in and try to damage the project etc... I don't know what I'd do if I were in the position to damage, delay, or stop something as blatantly unconstitutional as a Muslim registration database, but I hope that I'd be able to muster to the courage to do so. The civil service oath requires you to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" I understand that constitutionality is determined by the Supreme Court, but if the government attempts to create a Muslim registration, they've crossed the line and it's time to act.
- stale2002 10y ago
  Then they should have acted 8 years ago, because the "Muslim registery" already exists under Obama
  - myrion 10y ago
    Surely you have evidence of this?
    - stale2002 10y ago
      Sure. The program has a name. It is called NSEERS. The info about it is all available publicly.
      - resfirestar 10y ago
        The statements of candidate Trump suggested a system far broader in scope than NSEERS to cover US citizens. The Kobach plan to reinstate NSEERS (it was halted in 2011) would presumably involve more invasive point of entry procedures for more countries. Whichever way it is, the real time to stop NSEERS was when it started in 2002. Since that didn't happen, it didn't stop until 2011. So yes, it is a good time to complain about religious profiling when a new administration is planning to institute it.
  - 10y ago
trentmb 10y ago
> you must follow it or resign--those are the only options, per your civil service oath. What's the difference between bureaucratic incompetence and sabotage?
- kristianc 10y ago
  Building it in MongoDB would probably give plausible deniability.
  - akmiller 10y ago
    ...or use ElasticSearch as your store of durable record
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      Better yet memcached
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Jtsummers 10y ago
> You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law. You kind of do. If you're ordered to do something that seems in conflict with the law and/or Constitution, you have a responsibility to not leave, to oppose that unlawful or unconstitutional action. That may require you remaining in place. If you leave, all that's left behind are the sort of non-thinking automatons I was surrounded by at one job for the AF who "were just following orders". They will follow the unlawful and unconstitutional orders and our experiment fails. Your obligation as a public servant in this country is not to the President or to the Congress, but to the People by way of the Constitution and those things which are permitted by it. Orders aren't obligations if they're orders to do things we shouldn't be doing.
- zeveb 10y ago
  You neglect the possibility of a legal, constitutional order with which one disagrees (neither the law nor the Constitution forbids all bad things). For a member of the civil service, one's choice, then, is to obey or to resign. For the military, of course, there is no choice: one obeys.
  - landryraccoon 10y ago
    I certainly hope you are wrong about the military. If the generals that lead the military attempt a coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of the US I would expect every loyal soldier to disobey those orders.
X86BSD 10y ago
"You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law." 1. Jury nullification. 2. Police discretionary powers.
scott_s 10y ago
I feel that is a rigid and too literal take on how government works. At any given time, there are more laws to enforce and enact than people and other resources to enforce and enact them. Deciding what exactly to enforce or enact is - in other words, their priorities - is often left up to individual agencies. For example, the Obama administration prioritized immigration enforcement by targeting those found at the border, or those who committed crimes [1]. In another instance, marijuana use is illegal under federal law, but some local laws allow it, and the Obama administration explicitly deprioritized enforcement in such cases [2]. Finally, I think there are valid cases where individuals within government should exercise their own judgement and resist direct orders if they feel they are unjust. One such case is when Governor Schwarzenegger ordered the pay reduction (down to federal minimum wage) of 200,000 state employees until the state legislature agreed on a budget [3]. The person who was supposed to enact this order, state controller John Chiang, resisted. "Under Schwarzenegger’s plan, the workers would receive their full salaries once a budget was approved. But California had enough cash in its accounts, and, in Chiang’s view, the Governor’s move could violate the Fair Labor Standards Act. Moreover, he thought, it was cruel. It was the height of the financial crisis, and mortgage defaults were up more than a hundred per cent over the previous year." [3] [1] http://www.npr.org/2016/08/31/491965912/5-things-to-know-about-obamas-enforcement-of-immigration-laws http://www.npr.org/2016/08/31/491965912/5-things-to-know-abo... [2] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/president-obama-marijuana-users-high-priority-drug-war/story?id=17946783 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/president-obama-marijuan... [3] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/resisting-trump-from-inside-the-government http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/resisting-trump...
mindcrime 10y ago
The "greatest good..." is determined by the law, written by our duly elected representatives. You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law. Sure you do. Our "duly elected representatives" are bullshit and have no special standing at all. The State imposes itself on us whether we like it or not, and we are all, as individuals, certainly entitled to oppose its abuses in any way we can.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
vkou 10y ago
"You don't get to serve the public and selectively reject the law." Every presidential administration since time immemorial begs to differ.

RA_Fisher 10y ago

Eek. I must admit I was hoping for for a response more like, "What? Hell no. It'd be civil disobedience time if that ever happened." :-(