The administration of President Donald Trump is moving to exercise more control over federal government technology, turning people who supervise that infrastructure into appointed politicians who can hire and shoot at will.
Currently, the information director of each agency is a non -partisan job in the hands of public officials, known in the OPM as “Reserved career”, which provides some protections against dismissals. The change, announced on Tuesday in a personnel management memorandum office, will make the “general” roles open them to a wide range of appointed. The change is established no later than February 14.
In that memorandum, the interim director of OPM, Charles Ezell, said the measure will better align those employees with the Trump administration agenda.
“It is no longer the season of impartial and apolitical technocrats, the role of modern CIO demands the formulation of policies and policy determination capabilities in a variety of controversial political issues,” Ezell wrote.
The White House “rightly expects that the agency’s CIO are in the first line of articulation and implementation of such policies, both within the government and before the general public,” he added.
The memorandum occurs when the Elf Efficiency Department of Elon Musk (Doge) has caused chaos throughout the federal government, since it infiltrates several federal agencies and its information technology systems. The Treasury Department confirmed on Tuesday that Dege has access to its payment systems, which control billions of federal payments every year.
A former high -level official of the OPM, who asked not to be appointed to protect colleagues even in the agency for reprisals, described change as “a technological coup d’etat.”
“It is assumed that the appointed politicians are like policy advisors. They are competitive works, but they are not a competitive merit system work, “said former OPM employee.” The CIOs have a lot of freedom and great budget control, because the greatest expense is generally in it and in cybersecurity.
An OPM representative declined to comment.
In January, Trump signed an executive order aimed at facilitating the dismissal of thousands of public officials.
Musk, a technology and the richest man in the world, in recent days has obtained access to confidential data in federal agencies and ordered young attendees to take power through Doge. The operation, which Trump became a temporary federal agency through an executive order, apparently aims to reduce federal bureaucracy. Musk, which has overlooks some dissemination obligations that are normally required of government employees, is classified as a “special government employee.”
As part of that initiative, Doge representatives have demanded access to government databases and databases and have sought opportunities to reduce expenses and review practices. Incoming musk allies have had explosive confrontations with federal employees responsible for supervising federal agencies and data.
On Saturday, two security employees of the US agency Security authorization for employees.
Musk has said that he wants to review other agencies, including the General Services Administration, the Office of Financial Protection of the Consumer and the Department of Education.
Since the 1990s, federal CIO have supervised the information technology systems of their agencies, including storage servers and file email.
The order does not necessarily say immediately to the CIO of the existing professional agency; Instead, it orders each agency to send requests to reclassify the relevant roles.
Once the roles are reclassified, the White House will have the authority to install its elections, said Jason Biefel, head of the practice of government matters in the Shaw Bransford & Roth law firm.
“I don’t think rocket scientists realize that it is so Elon Musk and his Dux partners can probably be installed in any of these positions,” Biefel said.
