Gov Workers Say Their Shutdown Out-of-Office Replies Were Forcibly Changed
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Government workers report that their out-of-office replies were forcibly changed to blame Democrats for the shutdown, sparking concerns about politicization and potential law violations, with commenters expressing outrage and skepticism about the government's actions.
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it's pretty obvious they can now search and replace across most if not all government websites now
let's hope that backdoor is locked down and not available for foreign entities
and this is of course a massive Hatch-Act violation but we're way past law breaking this far into the regime
This is a pretty silly manifestation of that power but it's a sign of things to come. The fact that they were able to change government websites, email signatures, and more within minutes after the shutdown should scare us
Would you say that a company adding a standard footer to your outgoing emails is taking on your speech?
This isn't a company though, it's the government, and it's generally considered unprofessional if not illegal for federal employees to make partisan statements on the job. There's also the fact that, in my experience, out-of-office autoreplies are generally drafted by the employee while footers are often standardized by the employer.
Additionally, there are strict rules on what federal civil servants can do during a shutdown that don't really apply in private industry, which means whatever official channels would exist to complain probably aren't available. I don't think furloughed employees are supposed to send official email, either, which means they can't clarify who provided this message even if someone is confused by it.
> Today, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) announces a new advisory rescinding the Hatch Act advisory opinion dated May 20, 2024, and a related advisory opinion dated October 15, 2024. The Hatch Act, a federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activity of federal employees while they are on duty, in the federal workplace, or acting in their official capacity. The new Hatch Act advisory opinion (the “April 25 Advisory") supersedes the May 20, 2024, and October 15, 2024, opinions in three ways.
> First, OSC will return to its traditional practice of referring Hatch Act violations by White House Commissioned officers to the President for appropriate action.
> Second, OSC is pausing the referral of cases against former employees to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) until the legal question concerning jurisdiction is resolved.
> Third, OSC is discarding the “year-round workplace political item prohibition" on wearing or displaying of political candidate or political party items in the workplace related to the campaigns of “current or contemporaneous political figures (CCPFs)." In practice, the blanket prohibition created too great a burden on First Amendment interests.
While you can grasp the barest of threads that your original statement was true because the OSC is "official" and anyone is afforded an interpretation, it's really goddamn deceptive. If anything is "the" intepretation it's derived from statute and/or common law, not one side's lawyers.
This means, to me, that claiming "The official interpretation of the Hatch act was changed" isn't at all a stretch. The officials, the ones in charge of interpreting it, put out a statement saying they've changed how they're interpreting it. How is that deceptive? What words would you use instead?
An honest way to describe the situation is "the Trump OSC has decided that Trump should investigate Trump and it is unclear if anyone else can sue for relief from a politicized civil service". At the very least "they've put out a statement saying they've changed their interpretation" is far better than the passive voice.
Just poison throughout from this admin.
What does the footer say?
Did congress pass a law I missed? Government communication isn’t a 1st Amendment issue. When you work for any employer, you are subject to the whims of that employer.
https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/free-speech-a...
Which laws? Because every government job I've come across has pretty strict rules on what you can and cannot say in public, or at least they way in which you have to frame it apart from your job.
https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/free-speech-a...
But from the ABA for a more reliable source.
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/yourab...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_(government)
the only copout is if it is president or vice president doing it, or someone outside the executive branch.
> The Radical Left Democrats shut down the government. This government website will be updated periodically during the funding lapse for mission critical functions. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.
> Every day that Senate Democrats continue to oppose a clean funding bill, they are stopping an estimated 320 small businesses from accessing $170 million in SBA-guaranteed funding.
> As a result of the shutdown, we wanted to notify you that many of our services supporting small businesses are currently unavailable. The agency is executing its Lapse Plan and as soon as the shutdown is over, we are prepared to immediately return to the record-breaking services we were providing under the leadership of the Trump Administration.
> If you need disaster assistance, please visit sba.gov/disaster.
In this case, the ACA subsidies would expire if a clean funding bill is passed.
(I’m not a democrat or a republican, I’m not rooting for either one.)
They win once and all of a sudden they feel they are the new kings
You clear are of you're rooting for your own Healthcare premiums to go up. This really isn't a left or right issue.
Heck, this proportionately hurts red states more. Must be so tiring in office to try and defend people who actively wish for your destruction.
That's precisely what this is, views on welfare are one of the most fundamental ideological differences between "the left" and "the right".
What's messed up is that people who need social welfare and subsidies the most end up voting for conservatism and austerity, so everyone ends up twisting the definitions of "the left" and "the right" to rationalize their own choices.
But yes, I completely agree with your comment otherwise.
One reason I don’t support the DNC is because Obamacare is such a shitty and compromised system, designed to help insurance companies maximize their profits. Since the Democrats can’t convince anyone to vote for them because they are obsessed with draping themselves in the mantles of unpopular culture war issues, they have proven unable to get the kind of power it would take to pass even a public option, let alone an “NHS.”
I don’t support the GOP, of course, because instead of coming up with a better alternative or an overhaul, they just fuck around with it and try to make it worse and more expensive.
Both sides are idiots here.
What Healthcare plan isn't going to help private insurance benefit? Medicare/caid already puts a trillion dollar in funding it, so this isn't isn't something that can be fully government funded with the US's current debt. They'll have to worn with existing companies on this. It's not an easy problem to solve.
The solution here is to get more progressive people into these seats so they get better deals and control the greed of private Healthcare, not just hold your hands up and say "both sides bad" and do nothing. Doing nothing only forwards the status quo, and the status quo ain't really great right now.
Isn't that a common Dem criticism? That we can't compromise and end up standing for nothing because every possible candidate has some small issue that makes t >the Democrats can’t convince anyone to vote for them because they are obsessed with draping themselves in the mantles of unpopular culture war issues
You're falling for the right wing spin. We still have Trump complaining about trans athletes as the government is shut down and somehow the democrats are focusing on the culture war? You're conflating internet culture wars with the DC politicians. Only one voter base has pushed this point and it's precisely to distract.
I'm on communities them "unsupportable"? I don't like that either. You don't make solutions without compromise.
like HN precisely to filter out thst bickering and focus on what's actually affecting my life.
Government has traditionally been horrible at establishing culture anyway. They can facilitate it, but it's down to the people to make do with the tools given.
> The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.
Just disgusting.
Since the raw text couldn’t serve as proof, an entire article had to be mounted to create the feeling of being appalling. It’s an opinion piece.
And that’s all it always it: People getting hung up over principles and theories. The proof those principles aren’t universal is that they don’t uphold them themselves when they’re in power.
I wish we were able to talk to each other. There are many ways, many paths together. But no, condescension, condemnation, hate, refusal to work on your bad sides, ideas of revolution, of uprising, of disrespect of people’s vote, refusal to communicate or work together, refusal to let working people keep the fruits of their work, and in the end, we have to take over the government, or you will.
There is no sharing when it’s your side in power. So we elect a hermetically sealed government. I wish we didn’t do that.
We quickly went from "should a woman have autonomy over her body" to "can the president invade a US city" in the blink of an eye. Things are getting continually less compromisable as we edge more to "should the US be a democracy" as a question.
That's dementia. He's old, it happens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_gov...
This is like something my 7-year old would do.
Like, surely even to their own supporters this looks… not great?
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