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.

1: https://www.google.com/search?q=SF-86+breach+opm&ie=utf-8&oe...

Second question: What level of clearance do your direct reports require? Secret? TS?

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.

> 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.

Why is it good to make it easy to enlist in the military?

We have a volunteer corps. For a lot of people, the military is one of the best job options as it also offers paid education via the G.I. Bill.

>"the military is one of the best job options"

That seems like a problem in and of itself, and certainly a more pressing one.

Many advanced countries require people of a certain age to do a stint in the military.

I think a volunteer force is preferable to a conscripted force.

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]

[0] http://www.americainwwii.com/articles/your-numbers-up/

Probably not one the USDS is particularly well-equipped to solve though.

> 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?

That's a question that has no easy answer.

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.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_(1969)

> 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.

If your a bright kid form a depressed area working in the tail arms to get get an education is probably better than staying.

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.

Best of luck as your journey there continues.

I'll pass that feedback on--thank you!

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!

Totally agree. I'm inspired by what they do, but working there would involve a big pay cut and a punishing commute, so (with some sadness) nope.

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.

It was eight or so months ago. If I recall correctly I got the interview because someone here flagged my application.

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.

> I think the mission of the US Digital Service is fundamentally non-partisan: we want to make government work better for the American people.

Couldn't most agencies claim the same?

Yup. The next level down of detail would be "using technology or best practices from the tech industry."

"we want to make government work better for the American people."

Sadly I don't think this is a non-partisan goal these days.

The goal of better government is non-partisan outside the drown-it-in-the-bathtub fringe. How to go about it is what leads to contention.

> 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.

To be fair, I often said that online when I was working for Google as well.

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.

It is very common on HN to put a disclaimer like this on posts. I do not think this has anything to do with Matt working for the government.

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.

I'd love to get back to talk to Leo Laporte at some point--maybe when things quiet down a bit.

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?

I'm curious how you see the future of the USDS with the new president.

You might want to update your Hacker News profile :-)