When the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was given the freedom to poke around in the federal government, many people expressed concerns regarding the sensitive data they would have access to without any restrictions. These concerns are now coming to fruition when Elon Musk’s department started to roll out AI to monitor workers’ communications allegedly to look for anti-Trump sentiments amongst workers.
These reports seem quite dystopian, after all the United States government is a democracy, and this seems more worthy of a dictatorship or the beginning of a totalitarian regime, but according to the agency Reuters, who originally reported on the story, this was confirmed by two verified sources. They also confirmed that the technology is already being used at the Environmental Protection Agency marking “an extraordinary use of technology to identify expressions of perceived disloyalty in a workforce already upended by widespread firings,” as Reuters stated in their report.
The use of AI by DOGE and the implications for the government
Although the extent of the use and the alleged reason for it is surprising, most of us have not really been caught unaware. During Trump’s first presidency, a lot of emphasis was placed on loyalty, with many of his supporters being left out in the cold the second a note of dissent was detected. Now, years later, the technology available to track down these “dissidents” is a lot smarter and can do the job much quicker.
A former federal employee also confirmed that the President is maintaining his desire for intense loyalty from employees and applicants, but it really seems to be an open secret once again. If we combine this with Musk’s plans to turn over large parts of the government to artificial intelligence, we can get a perfect storm where the AI is implemented without any regard to privacy or the law, especially considering the few limitations that exist given the novelty of the technology.
Sarah Block, a partner at employment law firm McGillivary Steele Elkin, spoke to Fortune about the state of affairs and the concerns about the new “rule” of AI “We’re in an unprecedented time with regard to how the government is operating at the moment and what the federal sector looks like. The government may have always been able to look at your email, if you’re a government employee,” she said. “But I think agencies were not doing that—they could, but they weren’t.”
A former federal employee who transitioned to the private sector last year noted that government workers, aware of public-records laws, generally understand that their emails can be monitored. However, they added that current circumstances feel more serious, “the stakes are higher. And the willingness to skirt laws is brazen.”
While monitoring government communications and emails may not be against the law, firing someone because of their political beliefs is, and that is one of the constitutional protections every worker expects, regardless of where they work, but especially if they work for the federal government. As Block confirms “It’s a prohibited personnel practice to discriminate against someone for partisan political reasons, It’s essentially political discrimination.”
But given that this is not the first illegal or unethical practice that the new administration has put forth, we have to wonder whether or not they care and whether the protections that are in place will be engaged fast enough to prevent our current democracy from collapsing. After all, in just a few months, both the Trump administration and Musk have taken aggressive actions against workers, including large-scale layoffs, efforts to nullify existing union agreements for federal employees, and attempts to revoke funding that had already been approved by Congress during earlier administrations.