WASHINGTON, DC (Federal News Network) — On the brink of Election Day, some career federal employees are bracing for — or even fearing — further escalation of online threats against them, and the potential exposure of their personally identifiable information.
In light of the rising tensions, the Department of Justice Gender Equality Network (DOJ GEN), an employee group representing nearly 2,000 career DOJ employees, is urging the department’s leadership to ramp up its response to the online threats many career federal workers continue to face.
In an Oct. 31 letter addressed to Justice Department leadership, the employee group pointed to what it said has been an uptick in doxxing and other online threats against career staff members since the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021. The group raised concerns about the likelihood of the 2024 presidential election and its aftermath worsening the issue.
“Novel threats that extend well beyond senior department leadership have intensified employees’ fears,” DOJ GEN President Stacey Young and DOJ GEN member Jay Sinha wrote in the letter. “For example, DOJ employees have recently appeared on online ‘target’ lists, and reporting revealed that organizations are planning to dox hundreds of federal servants for their perceived political or ideological leanings.”
DOJ employees have experienced threats in a variety of forms — for example, by receiving threatening letters in the mail, or being harassed on social media platforms, such as X. Some employees have also faced threats of doxxing: having their personal information, such as a home address, email or phone number, maliciously published online.
Employees working in DOJ’s U.S. attorneys’ offices, the civil rights division and the FBI, as well as those working on immigration cases, can be particularly targeted, according to DOJ GEN.
Threats against career federal employees have also risen as Election Day has neared. For example, an Oct. 28 report from ProPublica revealed recent comments from Russell Vought, former director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration. In a private speech, Vought said he would plan to put career civil servants “in trauma,” and that he wants them to “not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
“We have no idea what it’s going to look like in the upcoming weeks or months,” one DOJ employee, speaking anonymously to protect themselves from a possible escalation of online threats, said in an interview with Federal News Network. “It’s a scary time.”
