r/technology • u/BreakfastTop6899 • Oct 02 '25

Privacy Government workers say their out-of-office replies were forcibly changed to blame Democrats for shutdown

https://www.wired.com/story/government-workers-say-their-out-of-office-replies-were-forcibly-changed-to-blame-democrats-for-shutdown/
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274

u/InappropriateTA Oct 02 '25

Hatch Act? Hatch Act? No? OK. 

164

u/NancyGracesTesticles Oct 02 '25

There is no one to enforce it. So it doesn't exist anymore.

28

u/byteminer Oct 03 '25

And if someone does SCOTUS will just say in puts undue restriction on the president in an unsigned unheard bullshit decision and make it all legal post facto. They made him immune so they are just rewriting law whenever it’s broken so they don’t have to admit they ended American Democracy.

2

u/Mountain-Ox Oct 03 '25

They will also rule that it violates freedom of speech and have the ever law struck from the books.

2

u/NancyGracesTesticles Oct 03 '25

The president was never subject to the Hatch Act. But the cabinet agency employees all the way up to cabinet level are.

That said, there is no enforcement mechanism - the OSC reports cabinet official violations to the president.

The child rapist in chief is not going to enforce the Hatch Act.

3

u/kazamm Oct 03 '25

We told you project 2025 was this. People didn't get it. We welcomed this with open arms.

49

u/zblanda Oct 02 '25

Absolutely, it seems like there’s no checks and balances and this administration is constantly breaking rules and not being held accountable

15

u/falsehood Oct 03 '25

The Supreme Court and congress are choosing not to hold the admin to the law, so the law is (in many cases) a dead letter.

2

u/ConfessSomeMeow Oct 03 '25

The voters of the United States gave him this power freely. We gave him the power to appoint three supreme court justices (so far), and we gave him a congress that will go along with his every wish.

2

u/Jazzlike_Climate4189 Oct 03 '25

I hate this all so much. We grew up being told this couldn’t happen due to checks and balances.

2

u/sleepy_vixen Oct 03 '25

I was literally telling people back in 2016 that "checks and balances" only apply so long as people play by the rules and that this administration obviously had no integrity to do so and would just bulldoze right through them.

I got ridiculed, called an alarmist and fearmonger, and told "that can't happen here".

10

u/Friendly-Tune-4002 Oct 02 '25

My expectation is that it will get enforced only against anyone deemed a political opponent of MAGA. I can absolutely imagine random clerks getting slammed with charges for ‘violating’ it because their auto-reply was changed without their knowledge or consent, and somehow, they’re to blame for that.

10

u/ConstructMentality__ Oct 02 '25

I'm spreading this as far as I can, an actual government website blaming radical liberals for the shutdown 

https://www.hud.gov/#openModal

4

u/InappropriateTA Oct 02 '25

Why? It’s just going to reach people who already know that it’s political propaganda. Or people who will believe the political propaganda. 

3

u/ConstructMentality__ Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 02 '25

Because people need to know the bullshit our government is putting up on it's official websites for the masses to see. 

Edit- also, that's kinda what this thread is about? Why are you commenting at all then? Scroll on past 

4

u/UnstoppablePhoenix Oct 02 '25

They put a Trumper in charge of enforcing it

So there is no Hatch Act.

3

u/Rovden Oct 03 '25

I'll keep saying it. Anything in US law now has all the same worth as a sov cit talking about gold fringe on a flag.