Federal workers say they are increasingly trusting like Facebook

While Elon Musk and President Donald Trump sought to the intestine and reshape the federal government according to their desire, Federal workers changed how they communicate with each other and with friends. They stopped the communication channels, and they moved to new platforms, and what was once doubts have grown for lack of deep confidence – not only from their president, but from the same services leaked to the government.

Many federal workers who spoke with them freedom Provided that his identity is not disclosed that they conveyed sensitive talks from text messages and Facebook Messenger to the encrypted messaging application signal. Many download and use the signal for the first time to communicate with each other – away from the eyes of Trams and Mousics, as well as from the main technology companies. For some, everything was transferred except for the most harmful conversations. Pet pictures may remain on typical channels; Almost everything on a sign.

“I must have two separate conversations with someone on two different platforms,” ​​said the person working at the US International Development Agency (USAID). “But this is the way people trust in their messages.”

Another federal employee said freedom Their peers asked them not to contact them on platforms such as Facebook Messenger and transfer any talks about work or federal government for reference. Civil service employees said they are afraid that technology companies will match the Trump administration, such as Meta, to hand over the user information to the government. One of the workers said they are afraid that their data will be fed through the platforms in the tools of artificial intelligence that will be used after that to identify people who disagree with the administration.

They said: “I know this is an extreme thing, and the rational part of me says that it will never happen – but many things that we said will never happen,”

Another person said that daily communication with work channels has become more guarded.

They say: “We will usually make Snarky’s comments about driving and public things complaint.” “But over the past three weeks, no more. I am more careful, and I noticed that my colleagues are also more cautious.”

At the heart of some lack of confidence in how technology companies are comfortable in the Trump administration: companies including Deadand GoogleAnd Tim Cook from Apple All million dollars donated to Trump’s opening fund. For several months, Mark Zuckerberg Put it on thick in Carrie’s attempt to benefit With the administration, Trump publicly knocks and The oath preaching on the podcast. One worker also referred to A modern change from Google To evaluate holidays that removed celebrations such as the month of pride and the month of black history. (A spokes of Google said freedom The evaluation was replaced to display virtual entries only for public holidays and national celebrations.)

Privacy experts have long sparked concerns about how to use data that technology companies keep against users on the platform. In 2022, in response to the police inspection order, Meta fluctuated unprecedented chat records Where two women discussed abortion pills in a state where access to abortion was restricted.

freedom When Meta was asked if the company will hand over the required user data without the court order by the false agencies of Musk, the “Government Ministry of efficiency”, or Doge. Meta spokesman Thomas Richards said that the company’s policies have not changed and noticed that the “vast majority” of personal messages on the Apostle coded from end to end.

Dead He says “The applicable law and () the conditions of service) follow when the company receives government requests for data, and It publishes the highest level reports Based on the requests he receives. From January to June 2024, for example, dead I mentioned More than 14,000 requests were received by summons in the United States, and an amount of data was produced in 85 percent of cases. Andrew Crocker, Director of Law at the Monitoring Corporation at the Border Electronic Corporation, says data requests to companies such as Meta are governed by the fourth amendment as well as the Electronic Communications Privacy Law (ECPA), including the stored communication law (SCA).

“As a science, Doug itself cannot reach any of these types of legal requests – you must obtain assistance from the Law enforcement agency such as the FBI,” Crocker told Crocker. freedom In an email.

Privacy advocates have referred to the methods that tried to apply the law to circumvent the obtaining of an order from the court, such as The enforcement of immigration and customs using administrative call notes It was not signed by the judge to try to obtain user data from technology companies. In fact, Twitter (pre -Musk) was a request from the Ministry of Internal Security in 2017 I tried to detect an unknown “ALT-Angov” account This was criticizing policies during the first Trump administration.

“When you have companies that work as large data, it may be an incredibly rich goal for agencies trying to investigate or take revenge on federal employees,” said Dario Maestro, a legal colleague in the supervision technology project. “Law enforcement has already a disturbing number of ways to seize digital communications, whether through the summons notes, or the court orders under the law of electronic communication privacy, national security messages, or orders, often with a little transparency and lack of notification of those affected .

Crocker and Maestro emphasized the importance of specific privacy and security measures such as virtual to the end of the end.

In forums such as R/FedNews, users Share security tips and Warnings On how to monitor workers’ activities. The signal application provides encrypted messages from one side to end, which means that the company does not keep or can access messages. But this means that the user’s safety settings on their devices are more important: users can Set the messages to disappear after the time specified for time and Prepare a user name Instead of communicating with other people who use a phone number.

Even in the reference, there is an increased vigilance. Some federal employees have taken additional steps to protect their identities, such as changing their display names to be anonymous, for fear of someone who can snap his messages. The indication has not been mentioned immediately to a request to comment on whether it has seen an increase in new users in the past few weeks. But according to the data of the Pew Research Center, as of November from the federal government He works More than 3 million people, or 1.87 percent of the entire American workforce.