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
> 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.
> 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.
The registry existed under Obama, but it was created in 2002 after 9/11, partially suspended in 2011, and fully suspended last month [0], though it looks like it remains to be seen whether the suspension will be undone.
Thanks for the link. Looks like that program was only indirectly about religion. It provided a list of countries whose citizens were subject to more intense scrutiny. Most of those countries were majority Muslim, thus most people affected by the program were Muslim. There were successful civil rights complaints about this.
Trump, of course, has suggested a much more aggressive and less subtle program that includes an explicit religious test.
NSEERS is not even remotely a Muslim registry. It says if you're from one of five countries or are specifically selected, you have to pass additional scrutiny to enter the US and are subject to additional notification and reporting requirements.
Well it is effectively the same as what Trump wants to implement. So it is as much of a Muslim registery as his plan. (which, as you argue, is not at all)
No it's not. Trump said he wanted to register people based on their religion. NSEERS says if you're from one of five countries or are individually selected, you have to have additional screening. Also NSEERS doesn't even exist anymore.
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.
As opposed to what, conducting surveillance on basically every citizen in the nation? That was just dandy. But a Muslim registry, now you're going to get all uppity about that?
I'm confused. How did the USDS conduct surveillance on basically every citizen in the nation, or are you painting every US gov't employee with a very, very broad brush?
learc83 used the term "the government" in his post. I would not say that every US government employee is personally responsible for the current surveillance state. But when someone suggest "the government" is about to cross the line, it reeks of bullshit.
"The government" (our government in my case) has crossed the line so many times on so many different issues. The citizens never did anything. If the federal government built camps and starting rounding up Muslims or any group, we would do nothing tangible. There would be all sorts of racket made about it, but nothing would come of it. Any suggestion otherwise is just an attempt to bait some sort of discussion that Donald Trump is either the second coming of Adolf Hitler or the herald of the apocalypse. I don't like the man in any way. But where we all these people when Barack Obama decided he had the authority to execute US citizens?
Snowden pulled the veil on many issues similar to what you're referring to. I'm fairly certain he was a citizen at the time. I'd reference Chelsea Manning, because she acted as a citizen when betraying her oath to the military. I could see arguments against that, though.
The government came down hard on both these individuals. It's a damn shame. And please don't take this to be a pro-oppressive-government stance. I'm simply saying that citizens did do something. And every day there are citizens working in thousands of government jobs across the country trying to make the right decision. There's no reason to slight them.
You're confusing "the citizens" with two specific citizens. I've never called out Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden specifically. We did nothing in spite of the actions of those individuals. They laid everything bare out in the open for everyone to see. In the case of Chelsea Manning at great personal expense. The citizens did nothing in response other than make a racket.
I see what you're saying now and in that light I totally agree. We the people have been unable to hold our government accountable for things for a long time, and it's a total shame.
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]
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also, it would be silly to assume that we didn't have a database of "country from" for immigrants or visitors. "Muslim" is not a country, it's a religion, so you'd need some serious behavior profiling for that -- probably FB/Google are ones you should be after.
(Disclaimer: am immigrant, am minority.)
AMP is not an aggregator, it's a opt-in program to speed up pages. Personally, I prefer when someone posts an AMP link, because it is the exact same page and content but loads substantially faster. In this case, the AMP page took me 4.95 seconds to load while the non-AMP link took 10.73 seconds. Again, AMP is an opt-in program implemented by the website owner, is controlled by the site owner, and of course provides the same ad revenue for the site owner.
If amp were not an aggregator the URL would not point at amp.google.com.
I'm well aware of amp's purpose, function, intent, implementation, and effect. I strongly prefer not to have third parties mediating and obfuscating my browsing.
So please use direct urls rather than 3rd
Party aggregators. Thanks.
I dislike the amp links as they obscure the ultimate destination in a manner similar to (though not quite as completely) as URL shorteners. That said, aggregator is not the correct term to use here. Proxy may be closer.
Aren't we past the stage of building a custom database product for each specific use case?
Why can't a hypothetical Muslim registry enthusiast use AirTable, FieldBook, at least a dozen of similar database-in-a-box offerings, or just a managed instance of some open source database management system?
I don't support Trump or the unconstitutional American deep state, but you realize there is already a Muslim registry right?
In fact there are probably several competing implementations in various intelligence agencies, with substantially overlapping contents. Probably almost every agency has the capability to run
select first_name, last_name, home_address from us_residents where religion = 'muslim';
And get largely right answers. Similarly, there is already a border wall with Mexico.
I've filled out multiple hundreds of pages of visa and immigration forms, and I have never had to tell them what religion I am. Barring the use of country of origin or other specious proxies for religion, the feds still have no idea what religion I am.
Heuristic searches for muslims definitely exist - but they aren't as simple as you make them out to be.
They don't get the data for the (existing) Muslim registry by asking you. Just like the Stasi didn't send out a pre-persecution questionnaire to identify Catholics.
I'm not sure the surveillance state is anywhere near as pervasive as you think it is. It's important to realize that you don't yet live on the other side of the iron curtain, and that there is time to save yourself from that fate.
I would guess that most of the people who downvoted it, did so because they were opposed to the idea of a Muslim registry (as am I). If you're opposed to it, and hope that he is also opposed to it, then the last thing you want to do is to force him to go on record at this stage in his career as being opposed to it. That may do nothing, or it may hurt him, but it's not going to help him or the opposition to the registry.
On the other hand, if you're in favor of a Muslim registry and fear that he might oppose it, then it makes total sense to ask him this question at this time. In fact that's the only reason it makes sense to ask him this question at this time. Hence downvoters, assuming that the majority of HN is against a Muslim registry.
As the asker, I will say I'm opposed to the registry, and I disagree a bit with your notion on strategy. I see what you're saying. But I think it's important to establish a norm in our communities now (perhaps like http://neveragain.tech/), rather than being silent and hoping that we will have "sleepers" in the right positions that can stop it later on.
Rather than sophistry, it might be more productive to supply a third explanation for why someone would try and claim Trump hasn't worked hard to give the impression he wants a Muslim registry?
Bonus points if you can explain the massive cognitive dissonance between supporting a man who goes out of his way to muddy the waters where his plans and opinions are concerned, and the gnashing of teeth about Clinton's admittance that it can be useful to have a public and private stance.
So much of tech opinion is shaped at HN, I believe it's worth it to share – and in a way collectively rehearse – personal reactions to some of these hypotheticals.
I hope that if I were to be given a task so clearly violating rights, I would follow through with what my first reaction now is: sabotage it, using means usually considered illegal if necessary, up to and including property damage.
edit: I'm not at USDS, nor anything similar, nor a US citizen. So the above is pretty cheap talk – nobody would ever ask /me/ for their illegal Orwellian IT project. I was just trying to express an attitude that I hope exists where it actually matters.
You state this as simple fact, but is it so? Delivering enterprise software is very hard. Matt suggests that USDS was necessary to rescue healthcare.gov, for example. The labor pool of skilled coders is smaller vs. demand than for many other professions. If the top 500 coders declined to participate in a project that savagely violates human rights - and encouraged this as a norm in our communities - isn't it plausible that doing so could either prevent, derail, or meaningfully weaken such a project?
I concede that we cannot prevent some software from being created. But there is a great qualitative difference between any software and effective software. And if there isn't, and our creativity/labor doesn't matter in creating such a difference, then what is all this talk on HN about?
besides...
"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
> If the top 500 coders declined to participate in a project that savagely violates human rights - and encouraged this as a norm in our communities - isn't it plausible that doing so could either prevent, derail, or meaningfully weaken such a project?
Not sure what the top 500 vote totals were on this, but when Snowden's documents revealed existence of a massive domestic surveillance program that included large amounts of data collection, parsing and analysis, most people were surprised at the breadth, depth and sheer amount of data.
Worth noting that it was developed without any significant leaks either, which spells doubt on the idea that top 500 were even invited to express their stance on the subject, which nevertheless did not force the project into derailment. For all we know, some might have participated, through a government or a third-party contract that did not specify exact goals of the project and provided limited view into the overarching theme.
One thing that's hard to judge from the outside is the quality and efficiency of that code. It could be very bad indeed.
> One thing that's hard to judge from the outside is the quality and efficiency of that code.
I've had the opportunity to work with a few ex-NSA software engineers. One in particular was among the smartest and most capable colleagues I've ever had. If, as is the impression I gathered, he's at all typical of the talent NSA has at its disposal, I would expect the limiting factors to be the volume and accuracy of the data available, rather than the quality of the software built to analyze it.
That's why we need to more specifically show where software crosses ethical boundaries. With these NSA programs, I can easily see how you can work on them and never actually realise how bad what you're doing is – especially if your work followed a progressions.
Also, I can't resist, but:
> Worth noting that it was developed without any significant leaks either
I admittedly have little visibility into the scope of NSA programs, so have to resort to media for subjective evaluation of what constitutes "massive" or "domestic".
Assuming that journalists tend to sensationalize I'd agree to apply a grain a salt for these statements, but is there an argument suggesting NSA's operation was fairly small scale and is not indicative of their capability to build large systems?
The argument is to look at the primary documents that the journalists were working from, which shows collection that is far smaller than what the journalists claimed.
Just a warning for everyone from California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, etc. They do require you to certify for the background screening that you have not done any federally illegal drugs in the last 12 months, and possibly do drug tests. Might not want to spend too much time on it if that applies to you.
This is such a shame. I remember the NSA and FBI having trouble finding techies because basically everyone they interviewed had smoked weed sometime in the last five years.
Which, particularly for those agencies, comes about due to the most absurd of reasons:
1. We'd treat drug using employees really seriously
2. Therefore you must not do drugs
3. Because we're so serious about this this becomes a major blackmailing vector.
4. So we need to make really sure you're a drug user.
It's an entirely manufactured problem that could be solved overnight by them just saying "hey, don't show up high on the job, but what you do in your own time is your own business, and we won't pro-actively investigate it anymore than any other citizen".
You would need to take a drug test to work for the USDS. To the best of my knowledge, you don't have to take a drug test to apply to 18F, although I believe that you may be asked the question as part of the application process for 18F.
I work at 18F but am speaking about my experience here and experiences heard from coworkers, not officially on behalf of 18F.
Applying to 18F didn't require a drug test for me. The application process asks this question in the background check part (details at "security clearance" at the bottom of https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/how-to-apply/ for anyone curious), but answering yes to the "have you ever done federally-illegal drugs" question is not an automatic disqualification. It can be a disqualification depending on the details of the drug use.
further warning, if you apply for a secret or ts clearance (which many, many IT jobs in the federal government require and particular anything that interacts with the DoD), you will be put through a polygraph... It's even more intrusive now and the background check is even more thorough in the post-snowden era.
> the background check is even more thorough in the post-snowden era.
Why is that?
I mean, this would be a case of "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" except that Snowden would pretty clearly have passed a more thorough background check. His background wasn't the problem.
The only thing I can think of that might actually have preemptively filtered him (or those like him) out would be some sort of psych test biased toward authoritarianism.
because knee jerk reaction, assuming logical reasons for well thought out responses on the part of the federal government dinosaur apparatus will only make your head hurt.
Hmm. I guess I thought ramping up the number of polygraph tests and re-evaluating which systems are accessible by people with various roles, responsibilities, and clearances would be a much higher priority.
Background checks are obviously a necessary and useful tool, I am just not sure I understand which dotted lines (regardless of their logic or illogic) connect "Snowden" to "more background checks" in a knee-jerk reaction.
Actually not completely true. It depends on the agency that sponsors your clearance and it has more to do with the agency's involvement in the intelligence community. The White House does not require it.
What are your thoughts on the theft of the entire contents of everyone's SF-86 from the OPM? I've had a security clearance in the past and all of my personal info was part of the data breach[1]. Incidents like this are one of the reasons why I would not work for the federal government again, except as contractor at much higher than standard federal scale pay rate. It's just not worth it in the personal hassle to go through the intrusive background check/clearance process.
Yup, my personal data was stolen in the OPM breach too, because I interned for the government when I was in college. But the USDS helped in the aftermath of the OPM breach. In fact, one of my first USDS projects after joining was a collaboration with 18F and the Dept. of Defense on a better version of the SF-86 and a more secure background investigation system. Without getting into weeds too much, there's lots of good work happening to make it easy to join the federal government or enlist in the military.
There is a background check process as part of joining USDS, but we keep looking at ways to make signing up easier, e.g. trying to make the process faster.
A volunteer force is definitely superior if you want to limit the concern of the general population about wars and make making war politically easier for the ruling class, which was a major consideration in the US switching to an all-volunteer force.
About 80+% of people join the military for money, college, and other benefits. The well-off people don't need the military for that. So, a volunteer military naturally selects for a make up of lower classes to be sent to die overseas to largely protect wealth of upper classes.
If there was a lottery, pushback from casualties would come from more people in upper classes that could cause real problems for politicians and generals. Could even be their own kids sent there. Switching to a "volunteer" military in an increasingly-shitty economy sweeps lots of their problems under the rug. ;)
A volunteer professional force is better prepared than one composed of essentially transient members, so casualty rates, should they need to enter battle should be lower than a conscripted military.
Yes, the fact that our military is more racially diverse than our general population is a reflection of our socioeconomic gaps. Ironically, blacks were initially excluded from the WW2 draft because "prejudiced questions about their ability to fight and worries that tensions between black and white servicemen might erupt." [0]
> For a lot of people, the military is one of the best job options
How do you weigh that against the risk of injury, death, or PTSD, as well as the civlian casualties of US wars?
To be specific - do you believe Iraq Body Count or the Lancet surveys, and how many civilians would have to have been killed in the second Iraq war for you to think it would be a net ethical negative to make it easier to enlist?
In the U.S., the decision to go to war is made by civilians: the President and (ideally) Congress. Below the President, the top military decision-maker/administrator -- Secretary of Defense -- is also a civilian. All the people in the country could sign up and join the military and yet have no authority to actually go to war.
But I'm not naive: the decision to go to war is made easier when the commander-in-chief has a capable and willing army to command. I teach a programming class and I like to talk about "real world" algorithms, such as the Vietnam War draft and lottery [0], a tragicomical example of how hard it is to generate random numbers. But the algorithmic thinking is not just the details of the lottery, but why the lottery was the needed algorithm in the first place. The answer: because not enough people want to volunteer for war. And random selection seems to be the only way to raise an army without angering the citizenry.
Now that we have a volunteer army, there are new algorithms in play. Such as where to focus recruitment efforts based on demographic makeup of people who currently volunteer. This is all to say that as bad as the draft was, a volunteer army doesn't make things hunky dory. And why should we settle for anything less than the quip, "What if they gave a war and nobody came"?
So yeah, I see the rationale for not making the military easy to join. OTOH, I still think that the prospect of war -- and the use of military force in matters of diplomacy -- is a reality we have to live in. Making the military more smoothly administered does not necessarily correlate with an increase in horrors of war. If the military attracts good people, then that means there is the chance of having good people in the chain of command.
To go off on a tangent, better military technology hasn't always resulted in more war. The atomic bomb was used to wreak horror; on the other hand, the prospect of nuclear war seems to have stifled the kind of "great" wars we've had since Hiroshima.
So to answer your question: I think it's too simplistic to think of a better military as being a net negative, if we accept the realities of the current world.
> Making the military more smoothly administered does not necessarily correlate with an increase in horrors of war.
Certainly making enlistment harder will decrease the number of troops (absent a draft) which has a non-zero probability of decreasing military adventurism, yes?
Discouraging a single enlistment seems to me like it has the same order-of-magnitude impact as casting a single vote.
> If the military attracts good people, then that means there is the chance of having good people in the chain of command.
How does making enlistment easier increase the percentage of volunteers that are good people?
> I think it's too simplistic to think of a better military as being a net negative
Do you think more recruits means a "better" military?
The military is getting a few more recruits than they need, so they are turning a few away. Discouraging enlistment would therefore not change the troop size until you get to a certain number.
Until then, you'd be tightening the freedom of the military to turn people away, which means lowered standards. There is a case to be made that you want the best possible people to join the military. Because you need a certain level of intelligence and moral integrity to, for example, refuse unlawful orders.
In fact, that mechanism used to be the top argument for the draft in my country (Germany). "Pacifists make the best soldiers" so-to-speak (although pacifists were in reality exempt from service).
I imagine you have to deal with the same ethical issues if you chose to go in to law enforcement (crimes against minorities) or EMT work (you may be called upon to help someone who just committed a crime, say in a DWI wreck or arrest).
I have no statistics, but I imagine the combat duty to total enlistment ratios make it a very calculated risk.
No questions, just a compliment. After going through the USDS interview process and declining an offer, I have nothing but appreciation for those who serve there knowing what's involved to be selected, onboarded, and what the day to day looks like.
I'll tag on here to compliment the usds.gov/join site. Great job at outlining everything upfront to make it easy for people to figure out if it's right for them. Might lift some inspiration from it. And thank you for serving!
I don't want to be too negative here, but I had the opposite experience. I didn't like the little bit of the process I actually got to experience, did not get a good feeling from either the job description or the one interview I had what the USDS is actually looking for, and found the canned rejection email to be a bit condescending.
Just wanted to say sorry that you had a bad experience. Would you mind if I asked when you applied and went through the process? I'm curious whether your experience was a recent bad one.
Since you pitch the USDS to tech people, please let us know: how free do you feel to speak your mind on political matters, or to effect those positive outcomes?
Personally I've judged the quality of incoming political appointees, and I would chafe at working under leadership I could not respect.
In my worst imagination, I would be holding down a desk until it could be filled by the employees of well-connected contractors.
You describe it as "incredibly frustrating" now. How do you think you can keep that work "deeply important and inspiring"?
First I'll add the disclaimer that this is my personal opinion. I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself.
I think the mission of the US Digital Service is fundamentally non-partisan: we want to make government work better for the American people. When a veteran can apply for health benefits online, they have a better experience. But it also saves the money from them driving to see someone in person. There's so much work like that to do that everyone agrees will make the government better, more responsive, and more efficient.
I also think the USDS has built up some reputation and trust because of the good work that it's been able to do so far. I'm heartened when folks like Kevin McCarthy (majority leader in the House of Representatives) tweet things like this: https://twitter.com/gopleader/status/796823547343736837
At Google, I didn't always agree with what the CEO decided to do, like shutting down Google Reader. Sigh. But there was a ton of important work to do, and concentrating on the common ground made it possible to do really good things.
How do you think the USDS is going to change in the next few months since you sit in the office of the president? I'm not asking for your personal opinion of the next administration, but I'm really not expecting a smooth transition. So are you expecting any major changes?
A lot of people are coming up on the end of their one or two year terms, so we'll be managing that transition. I will say that to the degree the next administration is interesting in modernizing technology in the government, there's a ton of great work that can be done. I believe there's a solid interest in that.
> First I'll add the disclaimer that this is my personal opinion. I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself.
And there it is. One of many reasons I'll never work for the government again. The government is so PC-sensitive that dude can't even post on HN without a mildly disguised form of legalese. When I was in the Air Force, everything I said had to be prefaced with
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Air force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
One might think this is a minor complaint but after years of death by 1,000 cuts, you just can't take it anymore.
This is common amongst all megacorps. They can use anything you say on social media against you if it makes them look bad. The disclaimer doesn't really matter but I still put one in my profile. Basically, it's not just the government that goes too far into private life.
Except that's also policy for most large corporations, as well. If you're working at some place like Microsoft or Google, it's required policy that you preface anything you say about Microsoft or Google with a statement that these statements are your personal opinions only and do not reflect the policy of the company.
You're pretty lucky to have never been in a position where you could be misconstrued as speaking for your employer, regardless of who they are. The Internet has basically neutralized the PR departments of any organization, governmental or otherwise, that wishes to control a message. CEOs tweeting about a bad day could have actual financial impacts. In this case, Matt doesn't speak for the USDS or the United States Government, he's sharing his opinions. That is not PC, it's protocol. That disclaimer could also have referred to his time at Google - he, personally, thought shutting down Google Reader was a bad idea, but Google, as a corporation, clearly did not, so his statement does not represent Google.
I am honestly curious if the powers that be at Google who made that decision would still say it was a good idea to do so. Obviously they saved some money since it was unprofitable to operate, pushing people off RSS readers may have improved ad revenue, etc. But of all the product shutdowns that have happened at Google, none has come back to haunt Google more after the fact as Reader.
I wonder, in retrospect, if causing that backlash would still not be seen as a mistake.
There exist people that are happy to take a personal statement and attribute it to the author's employer to score political points at the author's expense. When I use this disclaimer it's chiefly for my own benefit.
Best of luck Matt- I miss hearing you on the TWiT network, but I'm truly proud and inspired by the work you're doing. Continue to lead, and others will follow.
Not a question, I wanted to say that I am impressed with vets.gov and the pace of improvement. Thank you and your team for the work that you do! I can see it getting way better than ebenefits. Hoping it will allow vets more access to their information such as C-File and medical records without a FOIA request.
I love vets.gov. Starting with benefits was great, but secure messaging with doctors, filling prescriptions--there's lots of great stuff going on there.
While I've got you, are there 2-3 things that you would most like to see on vets.gov in the future?
I'm sure working for the US Digital Service is incredibly rewarding and much more so than perks like free lunches, but do you think offering free lunches will help reduce a common perception of 'bureaucracy' with government jobs?
Congrats Matt. It was a pleasure to meet you at the USDS ice cream social last fall. Today was my last day at 18F. I'm returning to private sector, for now.
I'm proud of what we accomplished in building cloud.gov. I think 2017 will be a big year for the platform.
Wow! Just took a look at the pricing page[^1]. This seems like a very expensive service. What makes it cost so much in comparison to what we see in the private sector? There's some info here[^2], but it's pretty general.
The TL;DR answer is that compliance in the government is expensive (for example, the gov't can require companies to maintain amended terms of service[1]). There are many vendors who choose not to work with government for that reason and its one reason the government ends up paying more for services.
Edit to add this link to a place in a video explaining more about compliance.[2]
Cloud.gov services can only be purchased by federal agencies. The pricing ensures that it is a cost-recoverable service. I for one am happy to see my tax dollars moved out of other federal agencies and into USDS.
https://www.usds.gov/join#who says they are only accepting US citizens. However https://www.usds.gov/join#application only asks if you are authorized to work in the US, and says 'For some positions US citizenship is required'. So are there any positions that do not require US citizenship, or should that application form just ask if you are a citizen?
I can't answer on their behalf, but I do know that the security clearance process generally prohibits non-citizens. You can get a Limited Access Authorization (LAA) in some cases. Given that USDS frequently works on sensitive infrastructure, I think there's a strong chance that citizenship is a requirement.
Most DC Federal jobs like the ones at USDS require citizenship. I know because I live in DC and my wife is not a citizen, drastically limiting her options.
If you're not a US citizen, you can build an equivalent of the USDS in the country to which you belong ;) If you are not a citizen of any country though…
One of the best things to come out USDS / 18F is their design guidelines [0]. It's very comfortable to read, and completely accessible! I think my only complaint is that the components are all a bit gigantic. But it's understandable, since they have to cater to so many people.
Considering the government and tech got me wondering: what software do our leaders regularly use? What measures are taken to ensure it's as safe? How much of this information is readily available? Hopefully this won't land me in an FBI watch-list :).
USDS and 18F serve in pretty different roles. USDS often comes in when there's a crisis or a high presidential priority, because the organization sits in the office of the President. 18F is located in the General Services Administration and is especially strong when looking at the medium- to long-term goals of an organization. I'd also say that 18F thinks more about culture change than many parts of the USDS.
They also have different funding mechanisms that lead to different operating models. USDS funding comes out of a budget called ITOR and we can represent a source of "free" engineers for an agency. 18F operates on a cost-recoverable model where an agency is paying for help or services.
There are other, smaller differences too. For example, it's typically easier to work remotely for 18F than for USDS.
From a distance, the organizations both look like "tech in government," but I think they operate better separately. I have enormous respect for the folks in 18F, and the two orgs have collaborated on things like the US Web Design Standards: https://standards.usa.gov/
Thanks for the explanation. I was just curious since I know I have seen posts about 18F here on HN before which sounded like very similar work. This is the first time I heard of USDS and as an outsider to government tech, they both looked the same to me. But that makes totally sense to me now, sounds like with the different funding and offices they work on slightly different projects and problems then but still tech.
Plus I remember at one point Obama was talking about duplicate agencies/programs and consolidating them. Then Trump talks about "cutting the fat", but I do see how being separate in this case actually seems like it helps.
I think the press articles that sometimes lump it all together can be frustrating at times and I like Matt's descriptions above. Another important difference: when USDS attends a meeting it's the "White House" in the room, whereas 18F sitting in GSA (which does other things like support government real estate) gives us a different context.
We both, though, benefit immensely from strong civil servants that partner with us. There's a narrative out there that "silicon valley" people have come to DC to "rescue" all of the government, when many people in both orgs have government experience (or come from the non-profit sector). Our work is impossible without partners throughout government who know a policy space and are ready to benefit from different tools and processes, and I wish those folks (or even just the tools and processes such as http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-681) got more attention than the "hero narrative."
This was written not long after USDS was founded, and I recall thinking even then that many of his comparisons were not entirely accurate. The comments you read here are going to be more complete and up to date.
Matt, are you not concerned that the USDS could be removed with the transitioning of President Trump. If I'm not mistaken it's part of the executive office so not only could it be undone, but it could be undone swiftly with the stroke of a pen. Seems like a risky move at this time!
It will be very interesting to see how Trump reacts to USDS and similar efforts that connect the Federal government with technologists and scientists. The Republicans seem to prefer that government function poorly (e.g. "starve the beast") but they DO like the private sector. So when you want to use private sector best practices to make the government work better, does the administration like it or hate it?
I was recruited and almost joined up with them but didn't for this exact reason. Too much uncertainty and potential for it to be cut right after I joined.
"I also spoke to a number of former team members. Publicly, almost all of them expressed optimism that the work would continue: The transition was proceeding cordially, the efforts to reform government IT were bipartisan, and Congress would back their efforts, which had already saved money for taxpayers and delivered services for citizens. But lurking behind every statement was an existential dread that Donald Trump would either pull the plug on one of the great achievements of the last eight years, or worse — he might order the best and brightest to work on projects that violated their moral codes.
If those fears were confirmed, it would mean the end of one of the most inspiring developments in government in years — and a backwards step for a bureaucracy that had for too long ignored the nation’s most powerful tools."
> But lurking behind every statement was an existential dread that Donald Trump would either pull the plug on one of the great achievements of the last eight years, or worse — he might order the best and brightest to work on projects that violated their moral codes.
Certainly there are other people who have had the same concern that President Obama, Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, Mr. Reagan, Mr. Carter and so on all the way back to Mr. Washington would order them to work on projects which violate their moral codes?
For that matter, surely any employee must have at least some concern that his employer will order him to do something unethical?
Since the election, has there been any dropoff in people staying or applying to join USDS? I ado agree that now is probably a good time to stick with things--but I'm sure others view it differently. I'm curious if there are enough such people to see a difference in staffing.
Edit: Also, as a programmer and DC person, I love the work USDS does and I hope you guys keep working indefinitely.
Watching that video will make you understand why someone like Matt would feel the call to service he clearly does. USDS is a true example of everything that is right about civil service and has nothing to do with partisan politics despite being part of the Whitehouse.
I said this in an earlier thread, but also applies to Matt's (and other Googlers) work for the USG.
AT&T, through Bell Labs, tried to be indispensable to the US Govt throughout the Cold War so that it would allow its monopoly to continue to exist. Google is following the same game plan. The problem with this game plan is that by Google seeming too cozy with USG it makes it harder for it to operate in foreign markets. AT&T did not have this problem as foreign markets during the Cold War were much smaller and more closed.
As a new grad, the USDS was my top choice but I was constantly stonewalled by recruiters saying that I wasn't experienced enough.
For the USDS engineers on the thread--does the work really require 5+ years of work experience? Is there really no place for a passionate and moderately-experienced junior engineer in the organization? I would quit my job in a heartbeat if I got an offer.
It does help to have a few scars, in that many of the problems also have organizational aspects to them. So it's not just the ability to code; it also helps to have seen a lot of dysfunction within companies, bureaucracies, etc.
The projects in which we are most successful are those where we have been able to quickly bring a lot of relevant experience to the table, not just knowledge and skill.
>> Steve Jobs: "When you grow up you, tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. And the minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
USDS was modeled after a similar initiative in the UK (the Government Digital Service). Maybe Germany could be next? Or maybe an EU-wide digital service?
Fellow public servant and former Skyper here. I can fully see where you are coming from. Keep up the good work, a lots of folks are looking up to what the USDS is doing!
Can explain briefly how 18F relates to USDS? I guess I thought that 18F was the group behind healthcare.gov in the US and clearly I have that wrong. Thanks.
I live outside of Seattle. But nearly all of the work I do with USDS requires me to be physically present. So I travel a lot (4/5 days a week). You aren't going to find a badly broken technology project in the Federal Government that is able to leverage remote people effectively.
On many of these projects, something is very very wrong. That's why USDS/18F are there. If everything is going peachy, we could be spending our time better, elsewhere.
Government is not a place where modern collaboration tools thrive. This has less to do with "broken IT" (though that's part of it) and more to do with the government's unique legal, oversight, and compliance burdens, and a lack of modern collaboration tools that can accommodate them.
The projects in which we are most successful are also not projects where people can easily contribute remotely. Some agency teams allow remote work but the jury's still out in my opinion as to whether these people are as effective as others.
Some of the USDS agency teams do have a remote work option. For example, the Defense Digital Service operates out of the Pentagon, but they have remote folks in Boston, New York, and Colorado.
If your considering applying ( which you should be ) I would implore you to relocate, while its a major sacrifice you will be more effective in person that you could ever be remotely
Apply on usds.gov -> Your resume is scored -> Technical interview (akin to Goog/twitter/amazon) -> EQ interview (can you handle the super weird work and environment?) -> technical interview (similar to first to follow up on any missing info) -> Interview feedback is reviewed by hiring panel to make sure folks are minimally qualified -> Agency team leads compete to make offers to qualified candidates -> candidates accept one of the offer(s). You can be dropped at any step and not proceed. Everyone on staff hates turning people down, because people only apply if they care deeply about helping others. We are forever grateful for folks who throw their hat in the ring.
Technologies run from COBOL (not kidding) to node. At 18F you will get to work exclusively in a modern stack, at USDS we're looking for people who are willing and able to scrub in to fix X, no matter what tech is in the way. The work is always oriented around solving a problem for humans, regardless of the stack.
If the greatest python dev ever applied, but couldn't creatively solve problems for a system that was built in powerbuilder 5.0 (lol/sob), we couldn't use her.
Hi Looking at the salary and that I'm in Baltimore making $135k as Sr. UI/UXer (designing/coding sites apps for Govt agencies) I'm not sure the salary range of up to $163k would be worth it. That's probably not for UI/UXers or is it?
My rent here in Baltimore with utilities is 2k ... if I moved to D.C. A lot of the additional salary would be absorbed by the doubling or tripling my cost of rent.
Thus I wonder why remote positions and or a mix of remote and on site one day a week is not being offered?
Housing in DC is a little over 3x what it is in Baltimore (overall so I'm sure you could find exceptions). In addition to that, you don't work for the federal government to make a lot of money. Because you can't.
So yes the salaries are not comparable. You would make less even if you got Step 10 of GS-15 (which you definitely would not). You might be able to make on your W2 at USDS what you make in Baltimore. Maybe a little less. If you work for the government in DC you are doing so out of a sense of service.
It's part of why it's so hard to get good tech people to work for the government. You have to be a Matt Cutts and have made your money already, or come from money, or have that inner drive for public service. It's hard to make $115k in one of the most expensive cities in the country when you could live almost anywhere else and make more each month and pay less to live there.
I understand your feeling, and even if you could get to the 163k pay rate (which you might not) you would be looking at a different lifestyle. Its important to go into the process knowing that a Job at the USDS isn't going to make the most financial sense, many people have turned down packages many multiples of 163k for the opportunity to make a difference on a scale that people would only dream about. If your not excited about the impact I think you would wash out after only a few weeks.
Does that fact tend to "filter out" those who are not young and unencumbered by financial obligations like mortgages and families or those who are well off?
I have a wife, three young children, and a mortgage, and it didn't filter me out. The money isn't the biggest challenge, it is tough work and it takes a long time to reach the pay off. The daily grind up against the machine that is government will wear you down faster then anything else.
I believe the HHS/CMS team spends quite a bit of time in Baltimore, because that's where CMS is. So it might still be worth talking to a USDS recruiter to see if it could be a good match.
$163k is very good money and awesome money for someone living in and around Baltimore.
I'd definitely consider if there were opportunities to work remotely each week a few days and commute in other days.
I think I'd be a good candidate with my interesting startup journey stories(a sad meet up story with Google re: a buy out, reality TV and other stories)and my experience working for govt. agencies here in Baltimore. But that would be up to those at the USDS to decide if I'm a good candidate or not.
Great to see there are actual adults ready to take a pay cut and serve the country in spite of maybe not getting the president they like. Far too many people have fallen victim to feigned outrage and pearl clutching, and excluded themselves from the conversation completely. That's not how you effect change, folks. _This_ is how you do it. You go out there and put in the hard work.
Just wondering if you would say the same of people protesting in Hong Kong, Russia, or Saudi Arabia. Should they also "act like adults" and "go out there and put in the hard work?"
Depending on a person's life experiences, it causes them to draw the line at different places. So I don't think it's fair to say those people display "feigned outrage and pearl clutching," while _this_ specific way is the adult way.
I would say the same things if they were merely pitching a fit about being on the losing side of a free and fair election!
You've got one thing right, which is that not all of the outrage is feigned, and some peoples view of the world is so distorted that they would place their "struggle" under Western democracies with that of the some of the most oppressive societies on Earth.
Of course they're completely mistaken, and you try to cover for this cognitive failure with this feeble argument from "life experience" which can be used to justify nearly any kind of ridiculous behavior. Think about it: Our experience of the world is fundamentally subjective, so who are we to say that one way of acting is better than another? Fine, enjoy your postmodern intellectual paralysis if you want but I'm not playing that game.
The facts are what they are, and Donald J Trump may be a formidable political opponent but he's not the god damn Chinese Communist Party.
Speaking of Russia (which is the only one of those countries/localities that I can speak for, since I grew up there), I will say that Putin is inarguably the best thing that happened to Russia in the past 100 years.
Some of it is price of oil, sure. But if you're going to compare to Venezuela, you should be comparing PPP GDP, and not just GDP at exchange rate, which is kinda meaningless. Scroll down to "GDP at parity" here: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=venezuela+russia+per+c.... As you can see, price of oil alone doesn't guarantee that the economy will get any better. And Russian economy did get dramatically better under Putin. I go back every 3-4 years, and the country is barely recognizable now compared to how things were 15 years ago. I could now actually imagine living and working there.
It's very hard for people to step into the perception of another locale. One of the examples I see is in Congress, people often lament members of Congress and wonder why they continually get reelected. But while everyone else all over the country may hate that Congressman, there's a pretty good chance the locals love him and feel that he's representing their community well.
That's pretty cool. I would love to see Google make this option easier for people who want to help with improving civic tech at the local, state, or federal level.
Trump is going to shut this down unfortunately. I don't think people have really come to terms with what is going to change. If there is anything digital that needs done, some republican backed defense contractor is going to do it for 100x the price.
This isn't scare mongering. Just my opinion about how things are going to go from someone who lived through Reagan and both Bushes. The main theme of right wing parties is to reduce government, but their stated goal of reducing taxes always turns out to be a crock of shit. Their motivation is to get tax dollars (and borrowed dollars) flowing to right wing organizations. Remember faith based initiatives? They had tax money flowing to churches.
> Working for the government doesn’t pay as well as a big company in Silicon Valley. We don’t get any free lunches. Many days are incredibly frustrating. All I can tell you is that the work is deeply important and inspiring, and you have a chance to work on things that genuinely make peoples’ lives better.
Pretty easy thing to say when you already have millions in your bank account.
