The department was shut down to a large extent due to the government closure. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is using emails from furlough workers to issue political statements.
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On Wednesday morning, as the government shutdown began, the chief officer of the Ministry of Education distributed standard office statements to all furloughed staff and directed them to copy and paste them into emails. That’s what they do.
But just a few hours later, those nonpartisan workers began to hear that the information they pasted into their email accounts was not the information the public received.
A department staff member told Internal Advanced ED Anonymous due to fear of losing his job.
When she followed the supervisor’s instructions and logged in, the automatic message she saw was not the message she saved that morning.
The new information is not the original statement, “As a result of the passage of grants, there is a temporary closure…” The new information says: “Unfortunately, Democratic senators are locking down. [a bill] …This leads to a missed funding. ”
This is one of more than 10 emails Internal Advanced ED As an automatic response, the same political information is included. Although KEAST was appointed by Trump, most of the staff we contacted did not.
The upcoming message changed internally without her consent. This staff member is not alone. Internal Advanced ED Ten independent education department staff were emailed Thursday, all of which were placed on leave, and each rebounded with the same response. A senior leader of the department also spoke anonymously, saying that to his knowledge, politically filled information is considered outdoor notices for all furloughed employees.
(The Ministry of Education did not comment immediately. In fact, emails sent to Deputy Press Secretary Ellen Keast and the General News Team account received the same automatic response.)
The first staff member said that while she was initially caught off guard by the alternative measures, the more she thought about it. Similar information accusing the closure of the Democratic senator has been placed on top of HUD.GOV, the landing page of all things for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other federal websites.
As of Thursday night, the HUD website noted: “The remaining radicals in Congress have shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”
Republicans control the White House, House and Senate. In the Senate, they need at least seven Democratic senators to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome the lawsuit.
“I was really surprised because we’ve made it clear what to use in the information outside the office,” the staff member said. But “When I saw this information from the supervisor, I thought it had turned into something more political than the original neutral.”
She has been logged in several times to change the automatic response to neutral language. But, every time within a few hours, the department covered her changes.
“This is what [is being sent] For those who contact me, they can reasonably misunderstand me because I am reluctant to convey such a political message as a federal employee. ” she said.
The second employee told Internal Advanced ED He has worked on several closures, but has not experienced anything like this.
“It’s crazy to see your name attached to information you have nothing to do with you,” he said. “It feels like a violation…you know you don’t expect anything from privacy when you work for the federal government. But it’s another thing to say you don’t have autonomy in your words.”
The second staff member pointed out that he believed that this violated not only his personal rights, but also violated federal law.
The Incubation Act was adopted in 1939 to ensure that non-partisan federal workers working across governments remained-non-partisan. According to documents from the Office of the Special Adviser’s website, the Incubation Act “restricts certain political activities of federal employees”, such as using official power for political purposes, soliciting political donations, wearing partisan political equipment at work, and publishing or sharing partisan content on government systems.
“It’s crazy to see that the law represents you breaking the law,” said the second employee.
Employees without department Internal Advanced ED There was no voice in conversation with individual lawsuits aimed at filing individual lawsuits, nor did any voices heard from the union about collective legal responses. But someone shared a democratic forward nonprofit legal group that sued the Trump administration several times this year and will appeal on Friday.
