Doge using AI to snoop on U.S. federal workers, sources say
reuters.com
reuters.com
Grok is FIPS complaint, right? Safe for use with confidential information? PII/PHI?
“Laws without enforced consequences are merely suggestions.” -- Ron Brackin
Also - impossible to hallucinate thanks to special technology ported from the Cyber truck's bullet proof panels.
I am a bit like him; when I make something, I see the end goal clearly and tell people like it's already there, almost, but it doesn't exist yet and takes years to do. Difference is, I sit in my garden in my underpants, he stands ranting in the white house.
And even if one can argue whether those count as foreign entities as in other countries, they're certainly foreign to the US government, since this is quite novel BS.
Musk being in a position to do this due to Trump appointment doesn't imply that this ought to be a case, or that this is proper. Thus critique.
As others have mentioned, there are two legitimate concerns here:
(1) Civil servants are heavily trained on the laws restricting use and access to certain information. There's reasonable doubt that DOGE and/or Trump will uphold those laws with these systems additional surveillance systems in place.
(2) This administration has proven itself incompetent and criminal regarding HR activities. Civil servants can reasonably wonder if this will further those dysfunctions.
OK. For the rest, we have elections and in the interim contact your congresspeople. Believe it or not, some percent of the country supports these actions, so the only solution is to remove them through the democratic process and put pressure on elected officials to hold them accountable.
Similarly, since they’re creating a conflict between perceived political disloyalty and professional ethics you have questions like whether an EPA official whose messages are flagged will have a human review the alleged offenses or be given a chance to defend their actions, or simply be “randomly” included in some RIF. We haven’t had to think about that since the McCarthy / lavender scare era, which significantly predated modern surveillance technology.
Since DOGE is widely reported to be using Signal and private email servers, there is reason to question whether those ethical standards will be followed.
> they’re creating a conflict between perceived political disloyalty and professional ethics
I think that gets to the heart of the matter: what is the purpose of the surveillance? In this case, it appears to be to root out people who have wrongthink about the leaders, e.g.
> Musk’s team is rolling out AI to monitor workers, including looking for language in communications considered hostile to Trump or Musk
Hostility to Trump or Musk is what you want, if they're pushing to do something illegal or unethical.
I don't think this is a problem anymore - hasn't he already cancelled anybody who was investigating him? I assume anybody who wants to keep their job knows to look the other way at this point.
There is something rather interesting in Trumpism where everyone has to fall in line in ways never, ever seen before. The dictator dictates and everyone else starts parroting. There is incredible danger if no one in government is allowed to express disagreement.
Both.
I'm sure one of the biggest eventual use cases of AI will be surveillance at scale. If that's the case, how enthusiastic are you be about AI as a technology?
I think its entirely reasonable for an employer to monitor employee communications on company media channels. I've dealt with a few toxic employees in the past where their incessant complaining and passive sabotage of work is incredibly harmful to morale and work of others.
I don't really see how using AI is controversial other than it's being done more efficiently, flagging just blatant violations. Seems preferable and more respectful of privacy that having an employee read all communications manually and applying judgement.
> Trump / Doge / Musk is snooping
It's pretty normal to monitor communication channels
> for anti Trump / Elon communication
It's pretty normal to have informal speech codes at work, which include don't un-constructively criticize your employer or parent company.
> using AI
Okay, it just does what humans do except more efficiently
> but the AI is not compliant to some regulation
I don't know and I don't think you know either
> but they don't "report" to him
They're still part of the federal government. Again, I don't think its unreasonable and its certainly not productive
At a certain point I realize there aren't any real objections other than [orange | rocket] man bad.
There's a lot to criticize with this administration but criticizing absolutely everything, even when its entirely reasonable, doesn't help sway people's opinions. So when people read hysterical headlines about how the federal government is spying on federal employees by accessing their pay information, they just tune out.
Got it. But for a lot of us this is not entirely reasonable at all.
It reminds me of an article that claimed Britain has become a more civil and less honest place in the last few decades. (The Economist, maybe?) Perhaps some workplaces are like that too. Whether it's a good thing or not, who knows. People clearly have their preference one way or the other.
This specific case is tied to complicated American politics, but I guess small versions of the same debate are happening in workplaces all over the world. Though maybe, ironically, not in the most intensely policed workplaces.
The point about AI isn't about efficiency, it's about accountability. This administration already has a huge accountability problem, and the AI is another layer of "Oh, that wasn't really me who did that thing I did." This isn't just cynicism, the current admin is incapable of taking responsibility for anything they've done wrong (and perfectly willing to take full responsibility for things other people have done right).
There are about 3m employees so this is about 2%.
This is pretty normal course of business for most organizations. Meta laid off 13% of workers in 2022-2023 and an additional 5% in 2025. Other tech companies did similar numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_mas...
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/contractors-and-true-size-of-g...
You normally want to keep the people you promote. You also normally want to keep the people you transferred to that new important project you spun up.
They reason they fired this specific classification is because it was easier to, not because there was any justification to fire them. I thought above you said it's hard to fire people without reason?
This is pathetic. In the US, nearly everyone is an "At will" employee. It cannot be legally easy to fire someone.
You can fire your employees because you don't like their shirt. Do you understand that? There is NO REQUIRED REASON to fire nearly anyone in the US.
Meanwhile, for non-at-will employees like federal employees, all you need is "cause", in other words, a bullshit couple "bad" reviews or a PIP or similar.
Do you know why governments don't usually fire people? Because they don't exactly have the most productive employees lining up to work for below market rates.
The government doesn't fire workers because whoever you replace them with (if you even can at all) will likely be just as bad or worse. It's not because "It's hard" and I'm so sick of the whining.
Companies should be a place where people earn a livelyhood and contribute to society. They should feel safe at work and able to freely communicate any suggestions or complaints they have.
I don't want politics discussed at work, it's annoying and a distraction. I don't want people badmouthing their job or work or company. All of these behaviors are toxic and I would guess 80% of people are like me.
That's what "feeling safe at work" means to me. Just mission focused. Happy hour is a different story, but at least with that you can choose to go and who to chat with.
It feels like your opinion is "boss is always right, just do what they say" (I apologize if I'm misreading that). The truth is that bosses are often wrong and need to be corrected.
This would be a ridiculous expectation if you were working for the federal government. Politics affect your work to an extreme level there. Not discussing politics at all is not discussing your job.
> I don't want people badmouthing their job or work or company. All of these behaviors are toxic and I would guess 80% of people are like me.
If your company was involved in something really bad, you'd rather just not know? If you worked for Theranos, Nikola, or Enron, you'd rather be able to continue on with your nose down than know what's going on?
I want to know the truth about my company. I don't want to be complicit in crimes or things that I consider unconscionable, and I don't consider willing ignorance a good excuse for partaking in unethical or illegal activity.
This is a lot trickier when politics won’t stay out of your work. For example, almost every business is affected by the tariffs because such a massive tax increase affects almost everyone. On the article’s topic, someone at the EPA hired for professional skills around pollution, climate change, etc. under the current administration will regularly be faced with the choice between denying reality/law and being seen as political.
Like, we know the "but her emails" thing was the greatest example of bloviated hypocrisy in human history. This government has absolutely obliterated information security norms, and suddenly all of those fake concerns dissolved. Similarly there was a week-long outrage about Biden looking at his watch during a fallen servicemember repatriation. Trump didn't even show up to four fallen soldiers -- didn't even know about them almost a day later, presumably because to him they're suckers and losers -- and went golfing instead. Not a peep.
So if the Biden admin deployed an AI sentiment analysis that flagged and then fired any civil servant anywhere in the masses of government who went against any of their decrees, would you say "well that's their employer and they're toxic"? Really?
What is your basis for claiming this?
In particular, with the current state of the art, an AI could hallucinate a violation.
Come on
Hamfisting some AI bullshit to try to gangbang the government with Elon's own little AI creation isn't some massive undertaking, and I assume you must be new to this industry or something to think it is.
[1] Current estimates of DOGE firings are in the range of 280,000 employees, not the 60k the other guy keeps claiming. And they've fired critical, hugely valuable employees repeatedly (nuclear safety, bird flu remediation, etc), seemingly having no idea what they do or how they do it. They just manufacture a BS cause, including claiming people who haven't even started are being fired for performance reasons, and automate mass firings.
There are about 3m employees so this is about 2%. 2% is not vast.
Okay but we're talking about a government with protections around speech and privacy. What does this have to do with "company media channels"?
Seems like legacy media is not pretending anymore and has transitioned into make-believe land after CNBCs airing of "unconfirmed information" about tariff pause only 1 day ago.
Like, protecting sources is about as old as journalism. Without it, you’re really just a conduit for press releases.
Example. "Anonymous sources in the CIA said..." That's a leak but not a real leak. You can tell because if it was a real leak, the government would track them down like Snowden.
Thats arguably what the press has been doing for the CIA in the last decade more or less.
>>> hold on, are you expecting them to name their sources? On this? Really?
Yes. edward snowden went against the security state. its not far fetched to expect more transparency over a simple govt policy related to an agency that is under the microscope (DOGE)
Particularly when trust in media is an all all time low
Particularly because of behavior just like the one displayed by reuters
Well, I think you already got the answer to your own question with your own example.
Some quotes from the article (was it really that hard to search for quotation marks yourself?):
>"We have been told they are looking for anti-Trump or anti-Musk language,” a third source familiar with the EPA said.
>"Be careful what you say, what you type and what you do,” a manager said, according to one of the sources.
>Last year, before Trump was elected, Musk suggested AI could be used to replace government workers, according to a person with direct knowledge of his comments. “The concept was that through taking the government data that they could build the most dynamic AI system ever,” the person said, adding that AI could then “do the work.”
Sounds like traditional media information is an article of faith for some, versus just another data point to analyze and address with skepticism in the search for truth.
The reason I said anonymous sources don't cause me to immediately dismiss articles is because I don't want to reward the admin for purposefully creating this shitty situation. I'll use other critical reading skills to determine the articles' value. It sucks that heavy reliance on anonymous sources isn't a huge flag anymore, but it is what it is.
Your example assumes that most unpaid people are your avg bureaucrat salarymen, looking to pay mortages, with expensive side mistresses etc. But these are not the workers we are talking about. Here are often tech millionaires that made their money actually selling things people found enticing.
For them, the extra dollar is just a small marginal gain on their life. Whereas for the average salaryman you are referring, money is a matter of actually having food of the table.
Not all dollars earned are the same.
> If they’re using Signal and not backing up every message to federal files, then they are acting unlawfully
So, this article is a "we don't actually know" and a "they could be doing something but, but again we don't know".
0/10 Reuters
> So, this article is a "we don't actually know" and a "they could be doing something but, but again we don't know".
> 0/10 Reuters
What do you want? The design specification and implementation? By what seems to be your standard, every newspaper would be empty. Which would be very convenient to some people! For instance, Elon Musk and DOGE.
Reuters knows what their sources are telling them, and they're reporting that. They're doing a fine job.