...Staffers have been told to expect deep job cuts among the agency's approximately 12,000 employees and the closure of many of its offices around the country, the sources said. Those employees who remain are being warned to expect their actions to be surveilled, from their swipes into government facilities to the keystrokes they type on their computers....
...The staffing decisions were communicated to some GSA staff during emergency meetings late last week. Staffers are refraining from communicating over email or internal messaging systems for fear of monitoring and retaliation, the GSA officials told NPR....
...Some of the job roles being targeted included communications, administrative support, stakeholder engagement, and interns. GSA employees were told IT roles would be "consolidated," said one of the GSA officials. "They're doing everything so fast, it's on purpose so you can't fight," the official continued. In the past, most federal civil servants couldn't be fired at will without cause or notice, though the Trump administration is challenging that precedent while unions and employees are pursuing legal challenges....
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For employees who remain in their jobs after the cuts and who do not take the Trump administration's deferred resignation offer to most federal workers — which is being
legally challenged — conditions might be difficult.
Staff were told by their managers that their work will be closely monitored going forward, the GSA officials said.
"There are going to be no more carrots, only sticks," said one of the GSA officials.
Some employees were told that would include monitoring of when employees logged in and out of their devices, when employees swipe in and out of their workspaces and monitoring of all their work chats. They were also told that "keylogger" software that would keep track of everything the employees type on their work machines would be installed on their work computers, the GSA officials said.
Government-issued devices are subject to monitoring, but the people NPR spoke with said this level of surveillance would be a dramatic change from how GSA has operated in past administrations, both Republican and Democratic. The introduction of keylogging is particularly alarming to GSA staff working on sensitive technical projects, who worry it could compromise security.
"If you stay, they're going to restructure everything," said one of the GSA sources. It's like a "Soviet-style reporting system, Orwellian nonstop monitoring," they continued. "This is bananas..."
