CNN Made FOIA Request About DOGE—Only to Learn FOIA Staff Was Fired.
"Definitely never seen this type of response to a FOIA request," quipped one journalist.
"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
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".
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.
They are literally fucking up entire US government.
That's the point
Yep:
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” — Grover Norquist
That was 25 years ago. It's always been their plan. They want to dismantle democracy and replace it with a corporatocracy, oligarchy, or similar authoritarian structure.
Part of the GOP plan. First fuck up government so completely it doesn't work, then scream that government doesn't work and should be defunded and shut down.
Not entirely true.
All these firings are likely going to result in classaction lawsuits, and the judiciary (so far) has been very responsive to Trump's power grabs. You'll recall they shut him down on DOGE's Treasury incursion, birthright citizenship, and the funding freeze. (Among others)
It may seem like everything's fucked up, but that's only because your social media feed and executive orders create chaos faster than the judiciary can check it.
Yeah that's why I'm trying to take a more passive approach and only monitor the situation gestures vaguely*.
I can't affect anything that happens at the national level anyway, so all I can do is be on the lookout for harm to myself or my loved ones and do my best to mitigate it.
We have FOUR MORE YEARS of this, and after that its going to take decades to get back to where we were two months ago. So, buckle in, I hope you weren't hoping for any kind of societal progess or innovation.
All these firings are likely going to result in classaction lawsuits, and the judiciary (so far) has been very responsive to Trump’s power grabs. You’ll recall they shut him down on DOGE’s Treasury incursion, birthright citizenship, and the funding freeze. (Among others)
Yeah, good luck with that in 2-4 years, when those lawsuits pan out. And then they get appealed to the Supreme Court, where the GOP-majority lapdogs say "yessir" and rule in favor of chaos.
We couldn't even get Trump convicted of criminal charges in time. What makes you think the judiciary is going to save us?
You may want a more recent news update before you claim the judiciary has been responsive. Judge Tanya Chutkan, the same one who ruled against insurrection charges "because we don't prosecute sitting presidents", just blocked the multi-state lawsuit requesting DOGE be restrained.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/18/politics/doge-temporary-restraining-order-chutkan/index.html
The judiciary has entered temporary restraining orders. No one has declared his power grab straight out illegal yet.
And when they do he’ll just ignore it. The courts are dogs with no teeth.
No, they are NOT literally fucking the US government. They are figuratively fucking up the entire US government.
Literally fucking up the US government would be some kind of orgy at the Senate. Or a bukkae of The Statue of Liberty.
Holy shit, I called it.
I thought they’d have Congress do it, but this was more efficient, so yay?
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
This was planned and on purpose.
How convenient, considering one of the extremely few checks we have available on DOGE destructive powers is FOIA requests.
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?
