If Your Are A Federal Employee You Risk Being Purged If Not Loyal To Trump/GOP Policies.

[TheMastersNemesis]

One can only imagine what it is like to be a federal employee right now. I am sure everyone is being monitored for loyalty to the new regime. Trump's recent rhetoric looks like code that a purge is already going on.

[Igel]

1. That's pretty standard.

Got new principal at the school I worked at. New set of procedures, new attitudes. New way of doing things.

Nobody required that teachers whole-heartedly support the policies. But they did require that teachers (1) not badmouth them to students or parents or community members and (2) uphold and enforce them.

The assistant principals were responsible for maintaining compliance among the teachers and motivating them. It was hard for the assistant principals to do their job if they didn't buy into the new policies. Some did, but at the risk of saying that something they thought was bad was good. And some outspoken teachers were put in situations that were no-win: Nobody's perfect, and as soon as you're on somebody's black list they can just point out where you screw up and make sure steps are taken to fix the screw up. Problem is, nobody's perfect, so for all the "steps taken" the teachers were still falling short of the requirements. It's Soviet-style thinking: If everything's forbidden except what's required, there's no gray area, and zero tolerance is intolerable, every action is either required or banned.

Both teachers and admins had to realize that their jobs were not their personal property. They served at will. And even though there were pretty good safeguards against abuse, by the end of the year they knew that between using those safeguards or just getting work elsewhere, moving on was the far easier choice.


It was the same for the business I worked for. New product line. I thought it was crap. Could I say that? No. My choices were to be quiet, get fired, or quit. Until the truth was accepted by the powers that be. I was bookkeeper, so it wasn't a big deal. "Quiet" was really easy. For me. Not for others. My interaction with the public consisted of collections.


Same for the graduate program I was in. I thought things were ridiculously poorly run and students were abused. I kept my nose down, for the most part. And yet when the outside review team showed up and talked to a lot of students, the program was all but shut down. The result was severe punishment, all of it by the book, aimed directly at me, personally, not because of what I did but because I had motive and opportunity. Yeah, it's "academic freedom," but your dissertation advisor is free to reject or accept your proposal, or even to step down as chair leaving you with nobody qualified to supervise you.

It's not a question of being monitored. At some point your supervisor merely notices that you're not upholding the policies that form the basis of your job. For the most part, zeal isn't part of the job description, but compliance with policies and regulations are--although if you work with the public and all you do is badmouth your boss your job longevity, as with any clerk who only says bad things about the establishment, is sure to be brief.

It can be especially bad in an environment that is openly partisan and the boss is of the other persuasion. The exclusive club, the camaraderie that existed by virtue of an irrelevant group boundary, suddenly is in danger. Been there, done that, too. And the attitude was always, "How dare he come along and tell us how to do our jobs? And how dare he threaten to take our jobs away. Doesn't he know who he's talking to?" And, again, people had to learn that they weren't entitled to their jobs any more than their contracts said they were.

[JHB]

5. Is it standard to hire partisan operatives as investgators?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/us/politics/epa-scott-pruitt-foia.html?_r=1

E.P.A. Contractor Has Spent Past Year Scouring the Agency for Anti-Trump Officials
By ERIC LIPTON and LISA FRIEDMANDEC. 15, 2017

One of the top executives of a consulting firm that the Environmental Protection Agency has recently hired to help it with media affairs has spent the past year investigating agency employees who have been critical of the Trump administration, federal records show.

The firm, Definers Public Affairs, based in Virginia, specializes in conducting opposition research, meaning that it seeks to find damaging information on political or corporate rivals.

A vice president for the firm, Allan Blutstein, federal records show, has submitted at least 40 Freedom of Information Act requests to the E.P.A. since President Trump was sworn in. Many of those requests target employees known to be questioning management at the E.P.A. since Scott Pruitt, the agency’s administrator, was confirmed.
***

The founders of Definers, Joe Pounder and Matt Rhoades, are longtime Republican political operatives. Mr. Pounder was the research director for the Republican National Committee and worked on the presidential campaign of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida in 2016. Mr. Rhoades managed Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012. The two previously founded America Rising, a political action committee that works closely with Republicans. Mr. Blutstein serves as the vice president of Freedom of Information Act operations at America Rising and has filed the majority of his requests to the E.P.A. via that organization.

[enough]

6. This is in no way standard procedure, thanks for the post. NT

[DavidDvorkin]

8. It's so very much not standard

that the Civil Service was created to prevent it.

[Rocky888]

2. Not just fed employees

What if kris kobach voter roll info has a double edge attack. What if they are planning to use this information to look into the federal and state benefits of democratic voters? And start threatening to take away any and all benefits like SSDI, SSI, MEDICARE, MEDICAID. Their only reason for ending immigration for all brown and black skin is their voting habits, not security. They are purposely increasing taxes and refusing any aide to blue states to cripple donations to democrats.
And now they will control all the information flow on the internet. And we thought trump was stupid. He has been turning our country into Russia with all gop politicians and Fox News help.
And all in under a year. And I think VA and AL dem wins are just to make us think they don’t have control of the 2018 outcome.

I hope I am wrong. But these people are hell bent on destroying any form of democracy. Trump and gop seem to be using the same method an abuser uses. Separate us from all our allies (family), slowly brainwash (Fox News), take away all financial means (tax heist)......

[NightWatcher]

3. And apparently they'll scour your private phone records for the "proof" they need as well.

I don't understand how the fbi employees phone texts were released.

[Lurks Often]

7. Because they were almost certainly government issued cell phones

Or they got a warrant.

I have not heard any reporting that the individuals involved have said anything about the texts were obtained illegally.

[marybourg]

4. Civil service employees have due process rights.

tRump hasn't managed to corrupt the entire civil service system . . . yet