Overview

• Multiple civil-service employees at the Department of Education said their automatic replies were changed without consent after they set neutral, agency-provided templates.
• The forced wording blamed Senate Democrats for blocking H.R. 5371 and told recipients the sender was furloughed until government operations resume.
• Some workers who restored neutral language later found the partisan text had been reinserted into their messages.
• WIRED received the same partisan autoresponse from the Education Department’s press line when it requested comment, effectively confirming the text at the agency level.
• Reporting also identified similar suggested language at the Small Business Administration and, according to sources and screenshots, the Labor Department, as experts warned the practice may violate the Hatch Act.