On Friday, the prevalent fear and anger that has spilled over federal agencies over a novel approach to reducing government on Friday over the threat of the billionaire tech lord to eradicate and punish those leaked to the media.
They already take all the precautions they can do in fear of retaliation. Set signal messages to disappear automatically, take photos of documents to share instead of screenshots, and communicate using non-government devices. But revealing the disruption caused by the government efficiency of Musk outweighs the risks associated with leaks for many.
Continue on Thursday New York Times Report That Musk is expected to receive a pentagonal briefing on a secret contingency plan for the war with China, and Tesla and SpaceX CEOs posted on his social media platform X that the leak was “find” and he punished intimately.
“We look forward to prosecuting the Pentagon people who have leaked malicious and false information to the NYT,” Musk wrote in his post.
However, Musk’s posts have not had a chilling effect on the leaks he intended, according to conversations with more than half a dozen government officials who had previously spoken to Politico. If anything, that could be the opposite.
“We are civil servants, not Elon’s servants,” said a Food and Drug Administration employee, who was given anonymity to speak openly about internal dynamics, as well as all those interviewed for the story. “The public deserves to know how this is all working, it’s deceptive and it remains deceptive.”
“Leaks are patriots,” said an agricultural employee. As media helps report on issues and concerns within the agency, the institutional concerns added by USDA employees are motivated by a desire for greater transparency.
“If the Biden administration or Obama had acted like this, no one would have tolerated it,” the official said. “The Trump administration can’t get a pass.”
Musk’s comments may not have made any major changes to the way federal workers share information with reporters, one federal employee at the health agency said he was citing group chats with other employees.
But even before Musk’s comments this week, the general vibe within many federal agencies felt employees were vulnerable, increasingly intensified and concerned about their physical safety, from the constant threat of shootings and the constant threat of banishing them to track orders from previous administrations.
These safety concerns include law enforcement pursuing leaks to far-right extremists attacking the people who make up the federal workforce.
Many federal employees who spoke with Politico over the past eight weeks said they had never contacted journalists before. And without Musk’s “moving fast, breaking things” approach, that would probably be the case in almost all of their cases, in order to cut down on staff and access sensitive government data.
“He’s a leak,” a senior Federal Aviation Administration official said of the musk in a signal message. “When you put a hard drive on a government data system, it creates the biggest security breaches we’ve seen over the years.
At the same time, even federal workers who are not talking to the media are afraid that they will be suspected of being accused of leaking information to journalists.
Now, federal agency staff are also worried about secretly watching them, either through company devices or software installed on their office cameras. It is unclear whether these claims are legal, but even before the latest threat from masks it has caused deep anxiety among employees.
“We’re completely out of the office and fully covering more conversations: put our phones in plane mode or go to the basement,” said a staff member at the National Institutes of Health. “I don’t call when I’m talking to my colleagues anymore. I think there are cameras and listening devices everywhere.”
And many simply talk to reporters using signals or similar messaging apps that provide end-to-end encryption to prevent third parties from continuing the conversation. “If someone refuses to ride an app like a traffic light and doesn’t talk [in person]I don’t trust them anytime soon,” said a NIH staff member.
What adds to the anxiety is knowing how masks were previously encoded His internal message at Tesla electric car company has clear informationIdentify leaks, such as “one or two spaces between sentences.” He was even more afraid, and was able to go even further and seed some of their agents with falsehood that could easily be tracked.
“I am more strongly reviewing what I heard before talking to the media,” said a NIH staff member. “Everything Musk is saying is a Saber Ratling that tries to silence government employees from talking to the media. Unfortunately, it’s working.”
Musk is not the first senior member of the Trump administration.
in I’ll post it on x Last week, the director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard pledged to pursue what she said “actively.”
“Politically motivated leaks undermine our national security and the trust of the American people and are unacceptable,” said Gabbard, who expressed sympathy for former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, as a member of Congress.
Gabbard has listed several examples of what she claimed to be an unauthorized leak to the media, citing many outlets with names including the Washington Post and NBC.
in Last week’s press releaseThe Director of National Intelligence said Gabbard has set up a whistleblower hotline directly in her office for intelligence officers seeking to report concerns about potentially unauthorized activities by her colleagues.
A staff member with the Homeland Security Agency said most employees who speak to the media agreed to the importance of not disclosing information that could undermine national security.
“Ensuring freedom of speech and freedom of the press is essential to maintaining transparency and accountability in the current environment of instability fostered by this administration,” said an official from the DHS agency. “To express concern is part of our right to speak openly. It’s important that any administration creates an environment in which employees feel they can hear, respect and empower their contributions constructively, rather than being silently ridiculed.”
Lauren Gardner, Marcia Brown and Maggie Miller contributed to this report.
