Late Friday, federal workers received an email from the Office of Personnel Management directing them to provide such information each week by Mondays at 11:59 p.m. ET. A similar email was sent out on Feb. 22, but the HR agency ultimately said compliance was optional.
After telling employees to disregard the first round, the Defense Department is now mandating its workers to respond to the email. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in a Thursday memo that submissions should not include classified or sensitive information and that non-compliance could lead to further review.
The Health and Human Services Department on Monday morning sent an email saying employees are “expected” to respond and to exclude the names of other HHS workers, to ensure that the information cannot be used to determine what specific scientific research is being undertaken and to assume that malign foreign actors could access the submission.
About an hour later, HHS distributed an updated email that employees are “required” to respond and scratched the line about malign foreign actors.
The Homeland Security Department, which instructed workers not to reply to the initial email, took a unique approach this time around, telling employees Saturday to send their responses to a department email address—Accountability@hq.dhs.gov--and cc their direct managers. Per that email, responses would “remain internal to DHS.”
“As part of our internal accountability and reporting efforts, we are implem ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
