By April Ryan

The federal government has many loose ends to tie after firing massive numbers of government employees and contractors, particularly in one department that once dealt with diversity. To protect fired employees from retaliation, an anonymous contractor terminated on Valentine’s Day, February 14, has expressed concerns that they still have government devices and equipment and active government emails.

The devices include laptops, monitors, computers, printers and more. The fired contractual workers have access to their government email as well as keycards that give admission for parking, building, computers, and government website access. The program manager over the department’s contract in charge of the fired contractual employees called the Program Management Officer of the federal agency that handles these matters to return the devices. It was said the call “was not two minutes” and the PMO said she could not talk to the project manager anymore as she was threatened with jail if they talked again. The PMO official stated, another agency “OAS will contact you.”

About a month later, the employees are now being told the government is in the process of returning the equipment. Fired government employees who still have active government emails received messages on those government emails and their emails. The fired workers who received no severance will be directed on when and where to return their government devices. Those who live too far away will be directed how to mail the items back to the government. In the meantime, there is a very real concern that someone who could be disgruntled could decide to do something harmful on a government website if they still have active keycards.

On a related note, before the employees were told they were fired they were mandated to scrub websites of any words of diversity and equity even if it was not related to culture, race, or gender. This group of contractual employees were also told to tell on other employees who were not following the mandate of Elon Musk and DOGE. Without identifying the department, location, and workers, this group of fired contractors worked on a specific federally funded program that dealt with race and gender.

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