If this reporting holds, someone rewrote federal workers’ out-of-office replies to pin the shutdown on Democrats. That is not just gross, it drags civil service comms into campaign work. Even if you think the message is true, hijacking employee autoresponders crosses a line.
TL;DR
🔎 Wired reports OOO replies were changed without consent
⚖️ Hatch Act questions are very real here
🧑💼 Staff tried to revert and saw changes return
🛡️ Keep outage comms neutral and logged, not political
https://www.wired.com/story/government-workers-say-their-out-of-office-replies-were-forcibly-changed-to-blame-democrats-for-shutdown/
#Security #GovTech #Ethics #PublicSector #Governance
Brian Greenberg :verified:
npub1qh…secu6
2025-10-02 21:32:44 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1qh2cmxlhetw8yld5vdd0ufda4ez2c2c8y0men30rr02pm5sa3ynslsecu6Seen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2025-10-02 21:32:44 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "70a01630d97cb0e975fcd871c25521057d6a2b388ac8f773da2a3546b7996264",
"pubkey": "05d58d9bf7cadc727db4635afe25bdae44ac2b0723f799c5e31bd41dd21d8927",
"created_at": 1759440764,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"t",
"governance"
],
[
"t",
"security"
],
[
"t",
"publicsector"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://infosec.exchange/@brian_greenberg/115306709944452318",
"web"
],
[
"t",
"govtech"
],
[
"t",
"ethics"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://infosec.exchange/users/brian_greenberg/statuses/115306709944452318",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://infosec.exchange/users/brian_greenberg/statuses/115306709944452318",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "If this reporting holds, someone rewrote federal workers’ out-of-office replies to pin the shutdown on Democrats. That is not just gross, it drags civil service comms into campaign work. Even if you think the message is true, hijacking employee autoresponders crosses a line.\n\nTL;DR\n🔎 Wired reports OOO replies were changed without consent\n⚖️ Hatch Act questions are very real here\n🧑💼 Staff tried to revert and saw changes return\n🛡️ Keep outage comms neutral and logged, not political\n\nhttps://www.wired.com/story/government-workers-say-their-out-of-office-replies-were-forcibly-changed-to-blame-democrats-for-shutdown/\n\n#Security #GovTech #Ethics #PublicSector #Governance",
"sig": "821b0da2682ee67e185d20ee5ba4515fe3320e9406d671167a82d4d959cd9674c5c0c2d286c22f7edcc9c1e2e7217b346fd8cee8a8ff5f81b5c9559142d0fe7d"
}