Two anon. federal employees have sued the Office of Personnel Management ( OPM ) , say that a newly circulated e-mail system is in reality linked to Elon Musk .
Last week , OPM disseminate a serial of unusual emails in which the agency claimed it was testing “ a new capability ” to contact all federal employees . Employees were encouraged to answer to the OPM emails to support they had get them . Amanda Scales , a former xAI employee ( Musk ’s fellowship ) , was late made foreman of staff at OPM . The newclass - action lawsuitclaims that exfoliation and others may be helping to work up a database of federal staff that could be used in the future to create contact lists for mass layoffs .
The suit of clothes is brief and does n’t provide much grounds for its assertions other thana Reddit post , which the litigation claims is sourced from an “ unknown OPM employee ” who is self - described as having been an agency employee for “ nearly a X and a Federal Employee for almost 20 yr . ” This employee posted a subject matter to an internal “ Union chat ” in the government and then continue to upload that same message to a public - facing subreddit .
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According to claims made in that subreddit , an email waiter was set up inside the OPM business office , in an movement to make it come out that a Musk - linked email system was actually emanating from the public office . It reads :
Our CIO , Melvin Brown , ( also a non political career public retainer ) was pushed aside just one week into his incumbency because he reject to setup email lists to send out unmediated communicating to all calling civic servants . Such communications are unremarkably left up to each bureau . Instead , an on - prem ( on - site ) electronic mail host was setup . Someone literally walked into our construction and plugged in an email server to our meshwork to make it come out that emails were issue forth from OPM . It ’s been the one send those various “ test ” message you ’ve all see . We think they ’re building a massive email list of all federal employees to bring forth mass RIF acknowledge down the route .
The litigation afterwards claims that the e-mail system presents illegal privacy risk of exposure to employees . Such a list violate the E - Government Act of 2002 , the suit claim . That law mandate that Modern databases involve personally identifiable information can only be created after a Privacy Impact Assessment is conducted and , in some case , the encroachment assessment must be publicly posted , the litigation claims .
While the contents of the causa are currently unverifiable , it speaks to the fear and anxiety presently boil the civic service , as Trump ’s new organization sets up a ego - admitted scorch earth agendum to drastically reduce the federal workforce and mutilate America ’s bureaucracy . Elon Musk has notably made himself a fundamental fixture of the Modern administration , and his DOGE religious service — which aims to trim the Union budget — has reportedly charge emissaries far and wide throughout the government .
It ’s accurate that Brown has leave his position as the government agency ’s top tech official after having served in the emplacement for less than a calendar month . Brown has been replaced by Greg Hogan , a physique of obviously mystic repute , giventhat FedScoop has tell , of him : “ Details about backcloth or experience were n’t immediately cleared . ” Gizmodo reached out to the OPM for more information and will update this tarradiddle if the agency respond .
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