why would it be bad for federal workers to be surveilled? is there an expectation of privacy while you're working?
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.
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.