#AltGov: the secret network of federal workers resisting Doge from the inside | Trump administration

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#AltGov: the secret network of federal workers resisting Doge from the inside | Trump administration

After seeing Elon Musk’s X post on Saturday afternoon about an email that would soon land in the inboxes of 2.3 million federal employees asking them to list five things they did the week before, a clandestine network of employees and contractors at dozens of federal agencies began talking on an encrypted app about how to respond.

Employees on a four-day, 10-hours-a-day schedule wouldn’t even see the email until Tuesday – past the deadline for responding – some noted. There was also a bit of snark: “bonus points to anyone who responds that they spent their government subsidy on hookers and blow,” one worker said.

Within hours the network had agreed on a recommended response: break up the oath federal employees take when hired into five bullet points and send them back in an email: “1. I supported and defended the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

“2. I bore true faith and allegiance to the same,” and so on.

It was only the latest effort by a growing and increasingly busy group banding together to “expose harmful policies, defend public institutions and equip citizens with tools to push back against authoritarianism”, according to Lynn Stahl, a contractor with Veterans Affairs and member of the network. Increasingly, the group is also trying to help each other face the thousands of layoffs across the federal government.

Calling themselves #AltGov, the network has developed a visible, public-facing presence in recent weeks through

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, most of which bear the names or initials of federal agencies, aimed at getting information out to the public – and correcting disinformation – about the chaos being wrought by the Trump administration.

With 40 accounts to date, their collective megaphone is getting louder, as most of the accounts have tens of thousands of followers, with “

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” being the largest, at nearly 95,000 followers.

The network has also formed a group and a series of sub-groups on

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, the encrypted messaging app, to share information and develop strategies – as played out on Saturday.

A post from the #AltGov account for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Composite: Alt CDC (they/them)/Bluesky

The #AltGov hashtag has roots in the first Trump administration, perhaps most famously through the “ALT National Park Service” account on what was then

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, according to the journalist Amanda Sturgill, whose book

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documents the earlier phenomenon. (That

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, with its 774,000 followers, has since moved to Bluesky. Its online presence is parallel to and separate from the #AltGov network.)

The original #AltGov

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accounts were dedicated to “sharing information about what was happening inside government – which usually doesn’t get covered as much, because it usually works”, Sturgill said. Examples included the first Trump administration’s deletion of data and separation of families through immigration policies, she said.

The people behind those accounts also banded together to “provide services the government wasn’t providing” – like helping coordinate hurricane relief and distributing masks during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Those efforts were often coordinated in

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group chats.

It was “a movement, more than an organization”, Sturgill said – and the same could be said of the current version, which moved its social media presence from X (formerly

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) to Bluesky “because of the Elon mess”, said Stahl, referring to Musk’s 2022 purchase of the app. “It’s not safe to organize [on X] anymore,” she added.

The current iteration has not been reported on to date, but the numbers of the Bluesky #AltGov accounts have doubled in recent weeks without media attention, Stahl said. The group internally vets all members “to make sure people work where they say”.

An #AltGov account compiles funny potential answers for Elon Musk’s request request for federal workers to send an email of five things they accomplished in the week. Photograph: Alt Fish and Wildlife Service/Bluesky

“#AltGov dates from the first Trump administration, but it’s even more needed now,” said an employee at Fema, the disaster response agency, who requested anonymity to avoid being targeted at work. She recently launched an #AltGov Fema account on Bluesky. With nearly 13,000 followers, the account says it’s dedicated to: “Helping people before, during, and after (this democratic) disaster”.

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“Every federal employee takes an oath,” said the Fema employee. “When I did it, I teared up.” She said one reason she decided to join #AltGov was because “information [from the federal government] is so compromised right now. Everything is going on behind closed doors.”

As an example, she mentioned the moment nearly two weeks ago when Trump and Musk brought attention to her agency, claiming that Fema was spending $59m on housing immigrants in New York hotels. The administration fired four Fema employees. So she turned to Bluesky and

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on the #AltGov Fema account:

Fiction: FEMA paid $59 million last week for ******** immigrants to stay luxury hotel rooms in NYC

Fact: FEMA administered funds allocated by Congress via the Shelter and Services Program (for CBP) [Customs and Border Protection] which reimburses jurisdictions for immigration-related expenses. FEMA just sends the payments.

“The official story the federal government was telling was a lie!” the #AltGov member told the Guardian. “Of course they didn’t throw CBP under the bus – because to them, those are the people who lock up immigrants.”

Stahl, the federal contractor, said that #AltGov members are also increasingly turning their attention to what she called “action plans” for everyday citizens, such as calling members of Congress and attending town halls. “The idea is to get regular people aware of what’s happening … [and] maybe even inspire some people to run for office,” she said.

And as Musk’s Doge swings its “chainsaw” through federal payrolls and piles up layoffs, #AltGov members also are using encrypted chats to figure out how federal employees can help one another. “[A]re we thinking of gathering resources for terminated folks,” one #AltGov member recently asked on Wire. “We are gonna need food bank info and benefits and anything the [federal] unions don’t cover.” Others weighed in on building a website to cover such information.

Sturgill said the first go-round of #AltGov was “interesting … [because] it kind of stood up a different way of governing by putting it in direct contact with people – a ‘government with the people’. Whether this [version] can take it further depends on how much of the government is left.”

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#AltGov #secret #network #federal #workers #resisting #Doge #Trump #administration

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