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> Why cares who personally violated federal law? However he managed to, Musk got unlawful access to restricted data.

Can you articulate what federal law you think that order says was violated?




You're welcome to chat with a lawyer about security clearances if that's not something you are familiar with


There’s nothing concrete in that article, just hand waving from people trying to keep their jobs. Who needed what clearance and didn’t have it?


In the BBC article?

I don't know or care as I'm not a party in this situation.

It is evident from the BBC article that restricted data was shared unlawfully with Musk and that they are asked to delete the data.

What will you do with the name of the person? Prosecute them?

You're welcome to look online yourself for answers for your questions - or chat with a competent lawyer, they'll be happy to help you sort it out


> It is evident from the BBC article

It is claimed from the BBC article. Even the shopped judge doesn't know if it is or isn't until the hearing next week.


rayiner is a lawyer, I believe with experience in and around DC and government agencies. I always appreciate his takes because they're often counter to call it the HN zeitgeist.


Why's he asking me then?


They're asking you to clarify your argument, obviously. You say some federal law has been broken, they're asking you to specify which federal law you claim has been broken. It isn't rocket science.


Alright, I'll break it down.

A lawyer would charge you a lot to explain this to you you know?

What he asked is not currently public. It will be made public during the hearing.

A US federal judge (Not some random guy) is acting in accordance with being aware of a federal crime. (It's actually many more than one judge and one crime but let's keep it simple)

I'm comfortable with trusting a US judges read on the situation a priori. You could argue that it will be overturned and thus nothing illegal happened, which would techbically be correct. All talk about this is hypothetical, especially here in the deep comment section of some website.

As I said, what are you going to do with this information?

So - this is a "gotcha" question, not asking for genuine clarification. As if random citizens should have an encyclopedic recall to all laws.

For more, ask a laywer


Security clearances being marked on documents as worthless because the government has told employees to "just pick" a specific cleatance from the dropdown, even for things like "lunch meeting Tomorrow". The clearance people were told to use is "never to be cleared" - meaning it's intractable.

It was abused, so I don't buy the legal argument.

Put another way, if everything is top secret, nothing is.



Those are speculative, and seem to be based on factual misunderstandings as to what’s actually happening. For example, there’s just one non-treasury employee with “over the shoulder” access to the system supervised by treasury employees: https://x.com/kyledcheney/status/1888904650906099774

People are going to make fools out of themselves again indulging every wild rumor and speculation (pee tape, etc.) without having the facts.


You asked specifically for a reference to what laws the team might be breaking, implying pretty clearly that you didn't believe any such reference could be produced; when it was, you moved the goalposts.


[flagged]


You identified the goalposts: what laws, then moved them when someone gave you said laws in the article you dismissed as speculation and vibes.


And you suppose the Trump administration can be trusted to supply those facts? Because that's the source you're citing, if I understand Kyle Cheney's tweet correctly (I may not!).


Okay "law bro", get real. He's a finance CEO gutting the CFPB as we speak: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-02-10/doge-back...

America wrote and upheld several antitrust acts with the express intention of stopping this. It's not enough to say "there isn't a precedent so it's fine", your credentials as an attorney do not obviate the illegal conflict of interests at play. You're being obstinate to defend moral absurdity to the highest degree.

Businesses will sue, they will cite damages and they will have a rudimentary path to proving it. Unless America thinks free market capitalism is a sham, the only way Musk can get away with this is fleeing the country in 4 years. I would love to hear your assessment of how a fair court under American law would rule in Musk's favor.




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