National Park Employees Break the Silence About Trump’s Hiring Freeze

America’s national parks are suffering the aftermath of President Trump’s federal hiring freeze. Less than two weeks after he signed an executive order halting all new government hires, park employees, both seasonal and permanent, are understaffed, overwhelmed, and generally fearful of what’s to come.

In response to Jason Koebler’s story about the freeze last week, a handful of national park employees, many of whom are afraid to speak up thanks to Trump’s communications ban at the Environmental Protection Agency, reached out to share their concerns.

Some are worried that vacancies could cause irreparable damage to national parks and forests. Others are exhausted from working overtime to compensate for their skeleton staffs. And many are seasonal employees who simply want to do the jobs they were hired for—a cruel irony, considering Trump’s campaign was largely predicated on the promise of employment.

"My entire livelihood is up in the air right now."

Public lands have always been in the President’s crosshairs, and with the support of a Republican-controlled Congress, we’re on track to see a systematic dismantling of their legal protections. Agencies that oversee more than 608 million acres of land entrusted to the American people are expected to be devastated by the order.

Right now, several hundred open job listings from the National Park Service hang in the balance. Approximately 8,000 seasonal postings—from science technicians to custodians to trail builders to interpretive rangers—are also unable to be filled, despite many candidates having already been selected.

Unless exempted by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, our national parks may look drastically different by the time summer rolls around.

Shast-Trinity National Forest, California. Image: Department of the Interior

“My boss wants to give me a job but no longer has the power to hire personnel. It’s just kind of a waiting game,” a biological science technician and seasonal employee for Yosemite National Park and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks told me on the condition of anonymity.

“The hiring freeze is bigger than anything we’ve seen before. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were cuts to purely science-based positions. You’re looking at a lot of well qualified, good people who know parks like back of their hands; who love what they do, and aren’t in it for money. Now, a lot of these people are going to take jobs elsewhere,” they added.

Since the voices of federal employees are more or less muzzled at the moment, we’ve decided to publish some of their anonymous testimonials. They’ve been edited for clarity, and to protect the identities of those who contacted us.

*

National Park Service entrance station operator, seasonal employee

This gentleman was supposed to be my new co-worker. He was supposed to have started long before the hiring freeze, but due to paperwork not being filed when it was supposed to, this is the situation now. I’m the only other employee that works the entrance station full time, so we have to rely on other employees willing to work overtime—myself included—to keep the station open.

Facebook screenshot. Image: Anonymous

My duties as someone who works the entrance station include welcoming visitors to the park, collecting fees, and providing information about the park to visitors. We are the first people that park visitors see as they come into the park. Some of the most important information that we give out to visitors is safety information concerning weather and beach conditions. We also provide information on the amenities available in the park.

Without that help—and if the hiring freeze continues into the summer season—it means that the entrance station will probably only be manned for the minimum amount of time. This means the park loses money that could go to programs, and other necessities to keep the park running.

My entire livelihood is up in the air right now. I don't know what will happen in March, and have no way to plan for what may or may not happen. I love the Park Service and the services we provide to the American people, and it saddens me to think that I might lose the possibility to continue working for them.

National Park Service wilderness EMT, seasonal employee

I have worked in service jobs for our government since I was twenty two. I am now twenty nine. I am not a college graduate. I am a hard worker and I try my best to be a good American who does a good job at whatever I am tasked with. I am not rich, but I am smart with my money and I do ok financially. I am very happy with the work I have been a part of since I started working for the national park service.

"Personally, I feel like this hiring freeze is a slap in the face to me and all my coworkers."

Being a seasonal employee for public lands these days is a lot like being a character from “Of Mice and Men.” You work as hard as you can for a season in a beautiful place, watching other (mostly) more privileged people than you enjoy the spoils of your hard work. You have a dream of eventually getting a highly sought-after permanent government job, or eventually figuring out some way pull enough funds together to get a down payment on land that you can call your own. You often worry about the fact that none of these things are likely to happen on account of the fact that you are never guaranteed a job next season.

Image: Department of the Interior

All it takes is the quick decision of someone with some agenda up in Washington to slash funding and drain swamps, or reel back spending to hurt thousands of people who just want to go to work every summer without begging. These are Republicans and Democrats, mostly middle-class, who love the American landscape more than its politics and the effect it has on anyone both international and national who take the time and effort to engage in it. They are hard working people who are often up before dawn and asleep after dark, battling elements and insects and politicians just to supply a mainline into the rugged individual beauty and solace that the contours of the American landscape and historical markers inhabit and indicate—just so that it can be accessible for all, for all time.

These are people who search for your loved ones when they are lost, and provide a venue to find yourself when you are lost.

They lose their lives and limbs fighting fires and building trails and saving endangered species. Their only agenda is to do their job well and to serve the country that they are proud of, so that others can do the same.

Personally, I feel like this hiring freeze is a slap in the face to me and all my coworkers who pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps to get this far and intend to continue to do so. And it is a negation of all the work and time we put in thus far

National Park Service ranger, permanent employee

I've worked seasonally for the National Park Service over the past nine years, and this year I was finally offered a permanent position with the agency. Now that there is a freeze, it’s unclear whether or not my job offer will be revoked. I've reached out to several people in the agency with no response.

The constant budget issues have caused an ongoing state of anxiety, especially for seasonal staff. When I posted about my potential loss of a job online, I ended up being trolled by multiple strangers arguing that rangers deserve to lose our jobs. They blamed the government shutdown of 2013 on us, and claimed we chose to close the parks out of spite. When I pointed out that Congress is responsible for passing budgets—and without one, no one would be paid to work at the parks—I was told we should work for free and not "take it out" on the public.

Civil servants have been used as a political target by politicians, and have been blamed for their actions. They want the voters to think we're responsible so they can avoid taking responsibility for decisions that are out of our hands. With some parks already cancelling public programs due to staffing limits, I'm worried the blame will be placed on park employees again.

National Park Service wildlife researcher and ranger, seasonal employee

For the last two summers, I've worked at a national park, both as a civilian contractor and a ranger. We were already understaffed this last summer. The difference in staffing even between 2015 and 2016 is staggering.

The interpretive rangers (the people you meet at the visitor center who give talks and answer your questions) were having to double up on evening programs, and there were fewer of them behind the counter than in previous years. This was the year of the centennial, mind you, when park attendance exploded.

"Basically, it's all very confusing and it's clear that hiring officials are confused as well."

The parks are already run with a smaller staff than is necessary. And the hiring of seasonals is absolutely essential. Unfortunately, that hiring process takes quite a bit of time—anywhere from a month to a month and a half. Receiving candidates from the USAJobs website, reviewing the applications, setting up interviews, processing their paperwork. All of this is done at regional offices which will be inundated with everything at once when the hiring freeze ends.

If it goes on even a little bit longer, you're looking at visitor centers and campgrounds not being open until later in the summer. A co-worker I spoke to has told me that they're considering not opening one of their visitor centers at all.

People do depend on these jobs. I have friends who work at one park in the summer, another in the winter, but they're still seasonals. It's incredibly hard to get permanent status in the Park Service, and the hiring freeze is putting people's careers at risk.

Forest Service trail worker, seasonal employee

The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of public land in the US, compared to 84 million acres managed by the National Park Service, including most of our designated wilderness areas. While the Bureau of Land Management manages a lot of rangeland, the Forest Service typically focuses a lot more on recreation (i.e. direct user experience). Your typical mental picture of a hiking trail snaking across scenic mountains likely takes place on national forest land.

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. Image: Department of the Interior

The Forest Service also employs up to 45,000 temporary, seasonal, and permanent employees annually, including about 10,000 wildland firefighters—twice as many total employees as the National Park Service, which has about 22,000 seasonal and permanents. Many experience even lower pay and less job security than National Park Service employees. As a seasonal Forest Service employee, I've struggled to find information about whether and how this hiring freeze affects me. I have several applications pending.

All [agency] job announcements posted on USAJobs after January 22 have been removed until further notice. [I have heard] there is a hold on processing applications even for job announcements that closed before then. However, [some of these vacancies are still up on the website]. Basically, it's all very confusing and it's clear that hiring officials are confused as well.

National Park Service acquisitions, permanent employee

What the administration also didn't take into consideration is acquisitions. Without hires, we [in our particular office] won't be able to procure the goods and services needs to support the National Park Service.

My office was already down [employees] heading into the busy season. We aren't sure how we will do it since we already burned through our overtime at the end of last fiscal year. So, the work won't get done.

Every year, our jobs get harder and harder since budgets get passed later and later, or we continually operate under continuing resolutions. There will come a point when we in acquisitions say, “oh well,” and go home. We are done killing ourselves, and if the work doesn't get done, it doesn't get done.

We used to care but we don't work for free and we aren't going to do overtime every day to try to overcome the government’s shortcomings. It's sad. We have felt the pressures just stack up and stack up and no one seems to notice. No one seems to notice the hard work we do every day. There isn't one person in my office that isn't pulling their weight. Not one lazy person. To be vilified now, as if we are the worst of the worst, is so disappointing. All we've ever done is support our government with pride and hard work.

National Park Service entrance station operator, seasonal employee

I work full-time seasonally in the fee booth entrance station at [a national memorial, which is part of the National Park System]. During the summer season, we may encounter over 1,000 cars coming through the park in one day. We also issue and sell park passes. Often, there are only two of us working the booths (there are 2 booths). If we are lucky, we have a third person helping out.

The line of cars can back up easily to the road if we do not move the cars through the station quickly. This is not always easy, and we also have to be accountable for the funds we collect. During the winter season, we normally have one person working a booth, while the other booth is closed. It will be total chaos if they expect one person to handle this amount of traffic alone.

I have worked two summer seasons, and I am looking forward to returning in April.

from National Park Employees Break the Silence About Trump’s Hiring Freeze

EPA Transition Team Tells Staff Not to Believe What They See In the News

Last week, the president’s former EPA transition team leader Myron Ebell cryptically warned that Trump would likely make staffing cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, he remarked that up to half of the agency’s workforce could be eliminated.

An internal memo—first leaked to Motherboard by an EPA employee and later confirmed by the agency—sent to EPA staff by a senior White House advisor today indicates that Ebell’s claims are causing unrest within the agency. The memo doesn't mention Ebell by name or say that the agency won't see major staff cuts, but notes that much of what's being reported in the news is not accurate, and that "no final decisions have been made with regard to the EPA."

Ebell’s interview came less than a week after Trump implemented a communications ban at the EPA, and froze the creation of all new contracts and grants.

“Let’s aim for half and see how it works out, and then maybe we’ll want to go further,” Ebell said. “President Trump said during the campaign that he would like to abolish the EPA, or ‘leave a little bit.’ I think the administration is likely to start proposing cuts to the 15,000 staff, because the fact is that a huge amount of the work of the EPA is actually done by state agencies. It’s not clear why so many employees are needed at the federal level.”

Ebell wasn’t officially speaking for the White House at the time—and admits he’s never actually met Trump in person—but his views on climate change and scientific integrity aren’t that different from those belonging to the president. Ebell has long been criticized by environmental groups for seeding doubt in climate science, and trying to dispel what he has called “the myth” of global warming.

As such, his nomination to manage the overhaul of the nation’s foremost environmental agency last year was shocking to many.

A legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council told the Washington Post today that Ebell’s suggestion to cut the EPA’s workforce would “cripple environmental protection across the board, putting at risk the health and well-being of every man, woman and child in our country.”

This afternoon, EPA staff received the memo from Don Benton, Senior White House Advisor currently overseeing the agency’s transition, addressing “final decisions” that employees might have seen in the news. It appears to dispel concerns about Ebell’s comments, but Benton didn’t specifically reference the former transition leader in his note.

Benton’s memo seems to underscore the fact that Ebell plays no role inside the White House. Ebell recently told reporters that Trump still intends to pull out of the Paris Agreement, but no word has come from the administration about the climate treaty. The email also downplays the severity of Trump’s EPA mandates, such as one that requires agency scientists to vet their public-facing studies and data through political appointees. The disproportionate attention paid to the EPA by reporters, Benton claims, is due to the “important nature of the work” administered by the agency.

As the memo says, "no final decisions have been made with regard to the EPA," so neither we nor EPA staff know if cuts are coming or how large they will be. However, the mere existence of the memo to EPA staff telling them not to panic over what they're seeing in the news is yet another sign of a chaotic transition process.

The full memo is published below:

*

After one week on the job leading the transition team, I would like to say thank you to the many career professionals here at the EPA who have been working with me, White House Liaison Charles Munoz, and the transition team. I have served many roles in my life in both the private sector and in government. I want the EPA team to know that the people I have worked with here are among the best I have ever had the opportunity to work with.

We all know that political transitions are never easy. Carter to Reagan in 1981, Bush to Clinton in 1993, Clinton to Bush, and the Bush to Obama have all been unique and possessed their own challenges. We are now working our way through the transition from President Obama to President Trump.

Due to the important nature of the work that is done here at EPA, we are falling under a greater media microscope than most agencies.

I, like many of you, am surprised each morning by what I read in the newspaper and see on TV news shows, because much of what we see is just not accurate.

In addition, many news outlets are quoting individuals who are no longer serving on the EPA transition team. I am not able to validate or reject the statements made by these individuals, since I am not directly working with them, and I have not seen many of the documents referenced in the stories.

I cannot tell you today what the final decisions from the White House, from our new Administrator, and from the Congress will be. I can tell you that despite what you read and see on TV, no final decisions have been made with regard to the EPA.

Changes will likely come, and when they do, we will work together to implement them.

One thing I am certain of is that the transition team is committed to working with you to carry out the core mission of the EPA - To Protect Human Health and the Environment.

Don Benton

Senior White House Advisor

* If you have information or documents pertaining to changes within the Environmental Protection Agency, please contact me: sarah.emerson@vice.com. You may also email me to speak over Signal.

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from EPA Transition Team Tells Staff Not to Believe What They See In the News

Uber Does Damage Control as Outraged Users Delete the App

Update, Jan. 29: Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, shared her thoughts with me about Uber's actions regarding the Muslim ban. "It’s not shocking that Uber would put greed above social principles. It does that to drivers every day. The question here in New York is whether Governor Cuomo will delete his close ties to Uber," Desai said.

Last night, at least 12 people—some disabled and elderly—were detained at John F. Kennedy airport in New York due to President Trump’s executive order banning nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the terminals to demand their release.

At the same time, Uber decided to drop its surge pricing for the airport (it’s unclear who at the company made the call), despite an earlier strike by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents 19,000 cabbies in the city. “We cannot be silent. We go to work to welcome people to a land that once welcomed us. We will not be divided,” the taxi union tweeted.

Surge pricing has been turned off at Uber NYC January 29, 2017

NO PICKUPS @ JFK Airport 6 PM to 7 PM today. Drivers stand in solidarity with thousands protesting inhumane & unconstitutional NY Taxi Workers January 28, 2017

Travis Kalanick, Uber’s CEO and a member of Trump’s economic advisory group, addressed the Muslim ban in a memo, like many other tech industry leaders. But Kalanick’s comments about the order felt restrained and impersonal to some, adding speculation to the motives behind his relationship with the president. Instead of calling the ban a violation of basic rights, for example, Kalanick framed it as a detriment to local business with some unfortunate human collateral.

Uber has been criticized before for its refusal to categorize drivers as employees, and for its auto leasing program that many have labeled as predatory. More recently, the company continued to illegally operate its driverless cars in San Francisco without necessary permits, until it eventually decided to relocate the operation to Arizona.

Kalanick made some indication, however, that Uber intended support drivers affected by the ban. He also vowed to raise the issue with Trump at their next meeting.

“We are working out a process to identify these drivers and compensate them pro bono during the next three months to help mitigate some of the financial stress and complications with supporting their families and putting food on the table,” he wrote.

Today, Kalanick shared a second post in response to last night’s events:

A spokesperson for Uber was unable to tell me how these drivers will be compensated, and how much they will receive, but said the company is currently looking into next steps, as stated in Kalanick’s follow-up post.

Meanwhile, Uber’s choice to consequently profit off the demonstrations did not sit well with many of its customers. And late in the evening, writer Dan O’Sullivan (who goes by @Bro_Pair on Twitter) kicked up a movement to #DeleteUber over its labor practices. Since Uber requires you to submit an explanation as to why you’re deleting the app, many users took the opportunity to tell the company why they were no longer using its service. (For the record, I also deleted my Uber account.)

It wasn

HUNTER S. FAILSON January 29, 2017

“It seems that to show solidarity with the protesters at JFK yesterday yellow cabs didn’t drive between 6-7. So Uber suspends surges/boosts for that hour in and out of JFK. Angering a lot of people causing them to refer to Uber as scabs and call for an Uber boycott,” one person wrote on UberPeople, an online forum for Uber drivers.

“Travis says he's going to compensate Muslim drivers that are affected by the ban and can't get back into the country to work and feed their families....while at the same time flipping the surge switch to the OFF position so that the drivers that are overwhelmed by the taxi strike get base rates for taking 45+ minutes per trip to pick up pax [passengers] at JFK,” another driver wrote.

Uber’s spokesperson referred to the #DeleteUber trend as an unfortunate misunderstanding. According to them, the company wasn’t defying the union strike, since the New York Taxi Workers Alliance only halted pickups at JFK between 6 and 7PM, and Uber’s tweet about surge pricing went out at 7:36PM.

“We’re sorry for any confusion about our earlier tweet—it was not meant to break up any strike. We wanted people to know they could use Uber to get to and from JFK at normal prices, especially last night,” Uber told me in a statement.

Jeff Jones, Uber’s president of Ride Sharing, also attempted to soothe unrest over the company’s labor practices. In several tweets to seemingly random people (including me), Jones directed users to Kalanick’s internal memo on Trump’s Muslim ban.

Jeff Jones January 29, 2017

In response to my deletion request, Uber sent this message which addressed last night’s protests. Other users who deleted their accounts received the same email.

Screenshot: Sarah Emerson

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance went beyond just an hour-long strike, however. In a statement, it said its largely-Muslim members would be joining protests at JFK in solidarity with refugees. The group also called Trump’s immigration policies sanctioned “bigotry,” and “unconstitutional.”

Correction: This post was updated to make make it clear that Uber is currently reaching out to drivers impacted by Trump's executive order, but it still doesn't have details about how it will compensate them or how much.

from Uber Does Damage Control as Outraged Users Delete the App

A Conversation With the Rogue National Park Service Twitter Account

Ever since President Trump launched an offensive against government transparency—first, by personally complaining about a retweet from the National Park Service that drew attention to his small inauguration turnout—Twitter has been a hotbed for burgeoning political dissent.

One of the most visible channels for this discord has been an account called @AltNatParkSer, which started as a reaction to the muzzling of a National Park Service Twitter account for sharing facts about climate change. About a dozen other alt accounts have popped up in the last week.

Can

AltUSNatParkService January 25, 2017

Yesterday, Motherboard’s Jason Koebler argued that “rogue” Twitter accounts claiming to be owned by off-duty federal employees should verify themselves. The point being, if you’re communicating with millions of followers under the guise of being an insider, it’s sort of on you to prove it. Otherwise, there’s no reason for anyone to believe you’re actually helping government scientists stand up to President Trump.

The story was met with criticism from @AltNatParkSer, the two-year-old Twitter account that recently claimed to be helmed by “several active NPS [National Park Service] rangers and friends.” For the record, Motherboard pointedly said, “this doesn’t mean Twitter checkmark verification,” only that it would be easy for whoever is operating the account to verify their identity to a third party and still remain anonymous.

More than 1.2 million people currently follow the account, and it’s doubtful most of them know it’s since switched to the authorship of alleged environmental activists and journalists.

Over the last 24 hours, many Twitter users have noticed idiosyncrasies that have led them to question the account’s ownership.

For example, @AltNatParkServ uses British (or Canadian) spelling variants for words like “subsidised,” “honour,” “privatised,” “programmed,” “archaeological,” and “U.S.” The account also recently changed its location to say “New York, Edinburgh, Hong Kong,” when it previously said “Washington, DC.”

We reached out to @AltNatParkSer through Twitter DM today, and learned more about the origins of the account and its future. A version of the interview, which has been edited for clarity and to protect the identities of those involved, is included below.

Hi there! Are one or more of you British?
We have a Canadian Brit and an Englishman in our group here. We're not the park rangers. We took the account over from them.

Was this account originally created for someone else? I noticed one of your first tweets was to a Scottish political commentary blog about elections in the UK. Curious to know why it got transitioned to alleged National Park Service rangers. Also, are any of you based out of the United States?
Here's the spiel. It was. It's an old account used by the English guy. He started using Twitter and then stopped after a few days, going back a year or so ago. He knew the rangers online and a group of us got talking about our concerns for the environmental impact of Trump's plans.

When we saw the issue with the Badlands tweets the rangers were furious. The Badlands Twitter had been tweeting facts and observations about the effects of climate change in the park for a couple of years. Then all of a sudden the climate posts got pulled down and a former employee got the blame.

We kicked up the Twitter account and they started using it while on duty. We were helping with posting tweets and research too. Then it kind of exploded.

[The rangers were concerned about being identified and reported to their superiors at work.] The threats came on Twitter and the rumours started at their job and they decided they didn't want to continue being involved in it. That's why they publicly handed the account over, so the park service and above would stop any digging on its own employees.

There's a group of us running it from the UK, US, and a few other countries. That's why you'll find spelling variations all over the place. We're not sure what to do. The journalists are taking a back seat and have asked us not to get too political, just tweet the facts and not go nuts.

But it's a bit hard to restrain yourself when Trump goes and says something that hits the bone. The only reason we're still doing it is because people from all over actually started calling out the politicians and Trump over how messed up it is when they lie straight on TV about photographs and climate change.

Why have those of you who aren’t park rangers remained anonymous as well?
That’s a fair question. We've been arguing a fair bit about that. One of the group is happy to identify herself as she feels it would add weight to her activism. But you gotta put yourself in the shoes of the guys who helped the rangers in the first place.

Imagine it was you who decided to do it. Now you’re journalist working for Vice, right? You're in a serious job and you're supposed to remain impartial in public and not let it affect your bias or whatever term is best when it comes to your reporting. But you can do what you want on your own free time as long as it does not influence your paid daily job. You can still be an activist for women’s rights or Planned Parenthood or whatever if you want to be a straight reporter. But if you let your bias and preferences come into your work then you have an opinion piece and not a news article.

Now imagine if you had helped these guys go outside of their job description in an attempt to help them be whistleblowers. Do you hand on heart believe you would want to give up your identity just so some clickbait scribbler at BuzzFeed could get a couple of thousand likes while you risk being accused of undermining a national authority?

These are all good points. I don't think I ever said that your account was biased though! What I'm curious to know is whether you plan to keep tweeting under the title of "alt National Park Service," which might lead some people to believe you're speaking for park rangers who are currently being muzzled.

Or, alternatively, will you move toward more of a science fact and news update Twitter feed?
I think the rangers had good and honest intentions and they're not involved with anything now, but they wanted to make a very clear statement that any suppression of scientific fact would NOT be tolerated. We all felt that if they stood up others around the country would, and it might maybe just make Trump realize he isn’t as powerful as he makes out.

We've made it clear that we do not speak on behalf of the rangers anymore but we do want to try and keep up what they stood for. We don't speak for the national park either, officially or unofficially. I think the others want to change a few things to highlight that to. But we do still want to promote the national parks as well as science facts and news.

[I asked them if they would be open to privately verifying one of the park ranger’s identities through an encrypted channel of communication.]
I’m sorry but there is absolutely no way in which the rangers want to be identified. Full stop. The reporters who do our fact checking literally said that in no way are we to ever give any indication of who they are, or pressure the rangers into doing so. One of the reporters was saying earlier he was in his newsroom in New York today and people were talking about all the rogue accounts. He couldn't even identify himself as being involved he was so scared about getting hauled into his editor's office and being pressed for it.

I understand why you and people want and feel the need to prove who they were because otherwise it’s like there's all this hype about an account that claims to be one thing, but without any proof. And as far as the rangers go, that doesn't matter much to them now because they did their thing, they shouted out and pulled in the attention. It only matters now because it would make a great headline and for all the 30 second attention span of the media a couple of park rangers were confirmed to have started a rogue account but after that it doesn't mean much. The reports said that without confirming the rangers’ identities it’s likely people will keep trying but the media will lose interest.

from A Conversation With the Rogue National Park Service Twitter Account

Slippery Thief Makes Off With 363 Salamanders in Mysterious Heist

Somewhere in Texas, a slippery thief has made off with a cache of rare amphibians. A reward of $15,000 is being offered to anyone with information about the theft of 363 endangered salamanders from the San Marcos Aquatic Resources Center in Texas.

Last November, 253 Texas blind salamanders (Eurycea nana) and 110 San Marcos salamanders (Eurycea rathbuni) disappeared without a trace from the facility.

The crime has no obvious motive, “and that’s what makes this so mysterious,” Collette Adkins, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told me.

“These are really fragile, small creatures that would have a difficult time surviving with a hobbyist. The first thing people think is, 'oh, they must have been stolen for the pet trade.’ But they’re not like snakes or turtles,” Adkins said, noting that keeping them alive would be extremely difficult.

Naturally, wildlife officials are eager to retrieve the special amphibians. The San Marcos Aquatic Resources Center breeds a number of rare aquatic species, and the salamanders were kept as a “backup” population for eventual reintroduction efforts. The facility, which is affiliated with the Fish and Wildlife Service, has been working on fisheries conservation for more than 40 years, and focuses almost exclusively on at-risk wildlife.

Unfortunately for police, the salamanders’ tanks weren’t monitored by surveillance cameras, and there were no signs of forced entry. The original reward was set at $10,000, but the Center for Biological Diversity added $5,000 to the bounty today.

I’ve reached out to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s San Antonio Office of Law Enforcement for their comment, and will update this story if I hear back.

People familiar with the incident suspect the thief might have stolen the animals for traditional medicine purposes. In China, a different species called the Chinese giant salamander is sometimes prized for its alleged benefits to human skin and heart health. No scientific evidence exists to support this belief. There’s also no history of Texas blind salamanders or San Marcos salamanders being used in Chinese medicine.

Another theory is that some predator, such as a raccoon, managed to break into the facility and devour all 363 salamanders. But there was no carnage left at the scene, and I wouldn’t bet on a hungry raccoon immaculately cleaning up its scraps.

San Marcos salamander. Image: Wikipedia/USFWS

The biggest concern right now is the fate of these amphibians. According to Adkins, both species can succumb to the smallest changes in water quality, which is one of the reasons why they’re vulnerable to extinction.

Tiny (just two inches long) and lungless, the San Marcos salamander is endemic to Spring Lake and a single pool near the San Marcos River in Texas. The population is currently threatened by agricultural and residential development, and is considered threatened by the federal government and the state of Texas.

The Texas blind salamander is a subterranean-dwelling species found primarily in the San Marcos Pool of the Edwards Aquifer in Texas. It’s also completely aquatic, making it even more susceptible to groundwater pollutants or shifts in water levels. The species has been listed as endangered by the federal government and the state of Texas.

Anyone convicted of this crime could face fines up to $100,000, and may serve up to one year in prison. If you’re reading this and have knowledge of the salamanders’ whereabouts, you’re encouraged to contact the Fish and Wildlife Service’s San Antonio Office of Law Enforcement at (210) 681-8419 or Operation Game Thief at 1-800-792-GAME.

Godspeed, little ones!

from Slippery Thief Makes Off With 363 Salamanders in Mysterious Heist

The Arctic Research Commission Has Gone Silent Under Trump

Update, Jan. 25: It appears the US Arctic Research Commission's Facebook page is actually up. The page linked to from the agency's website was either mislabeled or previously deleted. After deleting the tweet about "going on hiatus" this afternoon, the agency wrote on Facebook: "Posts will continue as before from USARC’s 'Arctic Daily Update.' Glad you like them. Thanks for the input."

Today, the US Arctic Research Commission (ARC), which would have advised President Trump and Congress on research and natural resource development in the Arctic, tweeted this:

Screenshot: Internet Archive

Less than an hour later, the tweet was deleted, but ARC's Twitter account remains up.

It’s unclear why ARC is going “on hiatus” at this time, or what a “hiatus” means for the agency. No announcements have been made on the agency’s website. This week, Trump announced a federal hiring freeze for all agencies, but this shouldn’t have caused ARC to shut down.

ARC was responsible for various reports on the effects of climate change in the region, which the Trump administration is unlikely to have embraced. Especially considering the president’s energy plans, which rely heavily on extracting fossil fuels from Arctic landscapes like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Attempts to reach representatives from ARC’s press office were unsuccessful.

This latest Twitter episode comes less than a day after accounts for Badlands National Park and Golden Gate National Recreation Area shared facts about climate science. A spokesperson for the National Park Service said a former employee not authorized to use the government Twitter account was responsible for the tweets from @BadlandsNPS.

A spokesperson for Golden Gate National Recreation Area told Motherboard their "guidance is to continue engagement as normal, with the exception of social media posts on the Secretary of the Interior's policy priorities, which will be outlined upon confirmation."

The recent muzzling of Environmental Protection Agency employees, along with censorship fears regarding national parks, has led to the creation of a “resistance” account called @AltUSNatParkService. The account is allegedly managed by off-duty park rangers, and has been sharing information about climate change and Trump’s impact on science.

from The Arctic Research Commission Has Gone Silent Under Trump

Can Trump Even Build the DAPL During a Hiring Freeze?

The Dakota Access Pipeline has a more certain future now that President Trump has signed an executive order to fast-track its construction. The order all but commands the remaining portion of the pipeline to be built, and requires the Secretary of the Army to consider bypassing environmental precautions before tunneling under Lake Oahe in North Dakota.

But Trump’s demand seems to underestimate the role that federal employees and contractors will play in its construction. The President’s federal hiring freeze has affected the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has yet to review the project’s environmental impact statement—a rigorous investigation of how the pipeline could harm land, water, wildlife, and humans.

The freeze might also restrict the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Defense agency in charge of issuing permits for the pipeline, from hiring new staff to expedite the project. It’s still unclear whether Trump’s exemption for military personnel applies here.

A spokesperson for the Corps’ St. Paul, Minnesota, office, which is not affiliated with the Dakota Access Pipeline, told Motherboard yesterday that no internal guidance had been provided regarding the freeze.

Image: Flickr/Monica D. Spencer

All government offices, except for military, are forbidden from creating new positions, including ones for outside contractors. In 2012, federal agencies spent more than $500 billion on contracted projects, a Congressional Budget Office report found.

Trump, through the executive order, claimed the pipeline’s construction serves “the national interest,” even though it would only create 40 permanent jobs, according to its developer, Dakota Access LLC. An analysis of the project’s economic impact by High Country News also discovered the pipeline “is not likely to result in increased production of North Dakota Crude.” Furthermore, it’s half a million barrels per day quota will hardly decrease America’s reliance on 5.2 billion barrels of imported oil each day.

He’s instructed the Corps to fast-track approvals, including easements for crossing federal lands. To do this, Trump has nudged the Secretary of the Army to consider “whether to withdraw the Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement” for the project. This means the pipeline could be finished without having passed a routine assessment of its potential environmental damages.

“A central plank of Trump’s energy plan is expanding energy from federal lands. But agencies that manage these lands are shrinking even as workloads expand. There hasn’t been a lower level of staff in 20 years,” Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said.

Image: Flickr/Joe Brusky

Last year, the Corps published its first environmental impact statement, but members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe said it didn’t properly address contamination to drinking water or threats to sacred cultural sites. In December, after protests drew thousands of people from across the world, the Corps rejected an easement for the project. A second environmental impact statement was opened in January to identify new routes for the pipeline.

What happens now is anybody’s guess. Although the Corps has already commenced work on its second environmental analysis, it’s the EPA’s job to review the findings and make a recommendation. But with a cap on current staff and presidential orders to fast-track the pipeline, there’s ample room for error, and mandatory steps like a public commenting period—the only opportunity for citizens to shape the outcome of the project—may become jeopardized.

Any attempts by the private sector to assist the Corps in its second assessment “could make environmental work vulnerable to legal challenges, and waste lots of time,” Ruch added.

Since Trump also placed the EPA under a gag order, banning employees from sharing information on social media or with reporters, many fear that transparency around the project will be even more limited.

Previously, Trump owned between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in Energy Transfer Partners, which owns Dakota Access Pipeline. A spokesperson for the president claimed he recently sold his stake in the company.

Energy Transfer Partners CEO, Kelcy Warren, donated more than $100,000 to Trump’s campaign last year. He also gave an additional $100,000 to the Trump Victory Fund, and $66,800 to the Republican National Committee since Trump was elected.

from Can Trump Even Build the DAPL During a Hiring Freeze?

National Parks Are Tweeting Climate Science After Trump Gags EPA

Update, Jan. 24: The National Park Service said in a statement that "a former employee who was not currently authorized to use the park's account" was responsible for the tweets from Badlands National Park. The agency also said the tweets were deleted according to staffers' own discretion.

Refusing to be silenced by President Trump, some of America’s national parks have been tweeting about climate change.

While this might sound pedestrian (and it should), most Twitter handles managed by the National Park Service haven’t mentioned the topic since Trump staffers temporarily gagged the Department of the Interior account for retweeting photos of his meager inauguration turnout. The fear inside the agency is palpable; especially since Trump issued an edict banning Environmental Protection Agency employees from sharing information on social media.

But today, some brave souls at Badlands National Park in South Dakota, and Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California, decided to tweet truth to power.

Over the course of a few hours, the Badlands National Park Twitter account shared a series of facts about atmospheric carbon dioxide and ocean acidification. While the term “climate change” was never mentioned, the intent of the tweets was self-evident: Man-made activity is the primary driver of climate change.

The account gained nearly 70,000 followers over the course of the afternoon.

Screenshots: Twitter/HuffingtonPost

Then, suddenly, the aforementioned tweets disappeared. It’s unclear whether the Trump Administration contacted the park about its Twitter activity, or whether someone at the national park requested the tweets be deleted.

Attempts to reach the Badlands National Park press office for their comment were unsuccessful.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area account also drew attention, tweeting a GIF of global temperature increases between 1850 and 2016. The account cited a report from NASA and NOAA explaining that globally, 2016 was the hottest year on record.

2016 was the hottest year on record for the 3rd year in a row. Check out this Golden Gate NPS January 23, 2017

As of this story’s publication, the tweet still remains up.

A spokesperson for Golden Gate National Recreation Area declined to comment at the moment on the park's decision to tweet about climate change, in spite of Trump's actions against the National Park Service account.

Few predicted the Twitter accounts of national parks would be first up against the wall. As disseminators of scientific information, as well as basic public service announcements, their muzzling may put American citizens at risk. At the bare minimum, many people will find it that much harder to access information about climate change.

“Merely five days into Donald Trump’s presidency, the administration is silencing the agencies tasked with protecting our environment, our health, and our food supply. This [Environmental Protection Agency] gag order sets a dangerous precedent and is sending a chilling message to civil servants throughout the country,” Emily Southard, a campaign director at ClimateTruth.org, said in a statement.

Some have also questioned whether the deletion of National Park Service tweets is in violation of the Federal Records Act, which requires each agency to preserve its records—including social media—for posterity.

Hmm. Was the deletion of the John R Platt January 24, 2017

Considering the Trump Administration’s hostile attitude toward science in general, we’re likely to see more of the same in the coming months and years.

If you have information or tips about social media censorship at national park offices, please contact: sarah.emerson@vice.com.

from National Parks Are Tweeting Climate Science After Trump Gags EPA

What’s Stopping Donald Trump From Keeping His Personal Phone

It’s impossible to overstate the inseparability of Donald Trump and his Android phone. The 70 year-old doesn’t email, and once said that “computers have complicated lives very greatly.” But for someone who doesn’t really get how the internet works, Trump has disproportionately relied on his phone to communicate with the outside world, primarily through Twitter.

So when it came time for Trump to surrender his Android for a government-sanctioned device, he was allegedly, yet predictably, unhappy. The headlines swiftly poured in. Some outlets likened the physical transfer of power to a child having their favorite toy taken away.

“Donald Trump trades in his Android for a ‘secure’ device.” “Security concerns force President Trump to ditch his Android phone.” “The Secret Service is taking away Trump’s beloved Android smartphone.”

Before his inauguration, sources close to Trump’s transition team told the New York Times he had relinquished his phone for a “secure, encrypted device approved by the Secret Service.”

In addition to getting a new number, Trump was likely given a device with extremely minimal functionality. When President Obama fought and succeeded to keep his BlackBerry phone, for example, he received one stripped of unnecessary utilities, and without recording capability. The exact specs of Obama’s phone, however, were kept a secret by the NSA.

“Ideally he’d be minimizing the use of the personal device to ensure that the majority of his activity is conducted on the secured device, which if it’s anything like Obama’s phone, would be unable to send texts/emails or make unsecured calls on commercial networks,” Chris Eng, vice president of research at Veracode and a former engineer at the NSA, told me over email.

It’s unclear whether Trump has actually stopped using his phone, or whether it was indeed modified for security purposes. Part of this confusion stems from the fact that we don’t know what type of phone he was asked to replace his Android with. Toward the end of his time in office, Obama was allowed to use a pared down iPhone.

Today, Trump tweeted a photo that appears to show the reflection of an iPhone 6 or 7. It’s impossible to tell whether the hands belong to Trump, so this doesn’t confirm that he’s actually switched phones.

Cannot recognize the phone of Mr.President. Any ideas ? codelancer January 24, 2017

What we do know is on the morning of his inauguration, Trump tweeted from an Android. The day after being sworn-in as President, Trump also tweeted from an Android. And yesterday, Trump again tweeted from an Android.

Last year, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told WPRI that Trump’s social media usage “is going to be something that's never been seen before.” Spicer’s later admission that he’s not forewarned about Trump’s tweets offers a glimpse at how digital operations are run in this administration.

Given Trump’s noted disregard for decorum, is it possible that he’s still using an vulnerable device? If so, what’s the worst that could happen?

“If he’s just using the personal phone for Twitter and nothing else, assuming the phone was first wiped clean of anything that was stored on it previously, then there’d be no direct risk posed to sensitive or classified government data,” Eng said.

When asked to confirm reports that Trump had begun using a secure phone for his communications, the President’s press team did not respond to a request for comment.

“However, if he could be tricked into installing malware on the personal phone, that malware could then do any number of things, such as capturing microphone audio or leaking GPS coordinates. For all we know, however, the Secret Service may have taken some additional steps to disable functionality on the personal phone as well,” Eng added, and warned that everything is speculation at this point.

Earlier this month, BuzzFeed News pointed out that Trump’s personal Twitter account is a ticking timebomb. If we can infer anything from Trump’s reckless tweeting, it’s that OPSEC isn’t up there on his list of priorities. Is Trump foolish enough to click on a malicious link in DM? Which third-party apps has he enabled on his personal account? Does he even have two-factor authentication enabled?

Surprisingly, there’s no evidence to suggest that @POTUS and @realDonaldTrump are equipped with extra security layers. At most, sources told BuzzFeed News, the presidential accounts have two-factor authentication and strict protocols enforced on the user side of things.

Twitter did not respond to questions about special security features that might exist for Trump’s accounts.

Strangely enough, presidential law has been slow to catch up with the pace of technology. There doesn’t seem to be anything legally compelling Trump to hand over his personal device, only historical precedent from former administrations. Before taking office, President George W. Bush turned in his personal phone, according to Eng. Bush also famously put an end to email correspondence with friends in a farewell letter.

Even the Presidential Records Act of 1978—which “requires the preservation of records created or received by the President or his staff”—has barely eked out guidelines around digital communications. (Trump drew attention to the Act this weekend when he deleted a misspelled tweet, potentially violating the law.)

As with many aspects of Trump’s presidency, the answers to these question will likely be answered in time, and on his terms. Who knows, maybe we’ll find out on Twitter.

from What’s Stopping Donald Trump From Keeping His Personal Phone

Can Species Be Saved Without the Endangered Species Act?

When it comes to the Endangered Species Act, no group of legislators is considered more hostile than the previous two years’ 114th Congress. America’s newest batch of congressional members is on track to assume that title and make the law weaker than ever, but that doesn't mean endangered species are necessarily doomed. While the Endangered Species Act has been instrumental to many wildlife recoveries, diverse groups of people across the country on federal, state, and local levels have fought to enforce it, and they're still here.

Before their session was over, the 114th Congress launched 135 legislative attacks on the Endangered Species Act, accounting for 45 percent of all bills aimed at the Act since 1996—a record-breaking achievement, according to the Center for Biological Diversity who keeps track of policies targeted at the historic environmental law.

But now, with Republicans controlling the House and Senate, and a Cabinet whose environmental record is decidedly shoddy, the next few years could effectively gut the Endangered Species Act. “It’s been mostly a death by a thousand cuts,” Sarah Greenberger, Vice President of Conservation at the National Audubon Society, said.

A handful of these bills and amendments have already been introduced since the start of the year. One of them, H.R. 424, would strip gray wolves of protections endowed by the Endangered Species Act in in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Wyoming. "It has never been used for the rehabilitation of species. It's been used for control of the land,” House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop told ABC News. Bishop added that he "would love to invalidate” the law.

An endangered Hawaiian monk seal. Image: Flickr/Pete Markham

The 44-year-old Endangered Species Act is weathered to assaults, and for the most part, its core elements are still intact. Enacted on December 28, 1973 by President Richard Nixon, the Act joined other monumental laws like the Lacey Act of 1900, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, each of which set valuable precedents for at-risk species.

Here’s how it works: Determinations are made for either “threatened” or “endangered” species (including plants), based on a set of present or imminent threats. These might include population depletion, range modification, overuse, or even climate change. In all cases, decisions are set forth “solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available.” Actual listings can take years, as deliberation timelines range from 90 days to 12 months. The process can include public comment periods, work plans, and often opposition from those who feel a listing would undermine their interests.

The Endangered Species Act is put to use by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, depending on the animal. Some of the protections the Endangered Species Act aims to enforce are the “taking” (essentially, hunting, collecting, or tampering with) of listed species, the destruction or overutilization of their habitat, and the prevention of federal activity that would harm their existence.

The law isn’t impermeable though, and a particular combination of factors have environmental groups concerned about the actions of this Congress. For starters, those who fought the Endangered Species Act in previous sessions will likely be emboldened by President Donald Trump, who hasn’t hesitated to express his discontent with the law.

“The US Fish and Wildlife Service abuses [the] Endangered Species Act to restrict oil and gas exploration,” Trump said at a petroleum conference in Bismarck, North Dakota last year.

Because the Endangered Species Act exclusively relies on sound science to inform listing decisions, Trump’s antagonistic attitude toward the scientific community is especially troubling. On the campaign trail, he vowed to cut funding for research institutions, and implement a government hiring freeze which would impact public sector scientists. His remarks on climate change, along with those of his Cabinet members, also show a habitual rejection of facts and scientific consensus.

“Once [scientists have] identified potential conservation problems we can offer suggestions for changes that will help alleviate them. Many institutions, agencies, and individuals are eager to protect and conserve species without the Endangered Species Act and scientific research can help guide them,” David Steen, a conservation biologist and assistant research professor at Auburn University, said.

The individual records of Trump's Cabinet picks have largely opposed federal environmental policies, instead preferring to delegate power to individual states. The President’s pick to lead the Department of the Interior, Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke, once supported a bill that “would overturn protections” for certain species protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to the National Resources Defense Council.

This type of thinking, when applied to the Act, is largely believed to hinder the conservation of endangered species. While state cooperation is encouraged, some environmentalists worry that without a national framework, endangered species plans could fall victim to industry influence, such as oil and gas interests.

“One bill would delist any species that did not cross state lines, and transfer management of that species over to the state. If you take away federal protections and give them to hostile states, that’s end of the species,” Jamie Pang, an endangered species policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said.

“Members aren’t looking for a comprehensive approach,” Greenberger said. In lieu of this, they’re “taking away the authority to protect species through the Endangered Species Act, and replacing it with a lot of discretionary actions of things people can or cannot do.”

But is the Endangered Species Act the end-all be-all of conservation legislation?

Some states, like California, have robust endangered species acts of their own. The California Endangered Species Act is considered to be the best example of this, sharing similar statues with its federal counterpart. The California condor, a species once teetering on the edge of extinction, was helped in part by state legislation that made it illegal to kill them, and placed additional regulations on toxic lead ammunition and the pesticide DDT.

Yet, in practice, state endangered species acts can fail for the same reason they can succeed. Migratory wildlife that move across state borders can make local conservation efforts more difficult and less impactful.

“One of the biggest potential drawbacks to states managing the protection of rare species is a focus on populations within arbitrary political boundaries,” Steen said. “For many wide-ranging species, state-specific management plans may lack the cohesive vision needed to protect and restore species and ecological processes across large spatial scales. This lack of cohesion between states may be particularly profound given that their politics and priorities are likely to differ.”

Some environmentalists will tell you, however, that recent efforts to protect the sage grouse—a plump little bird whose sagebrush habitat is also prized by developers and ranchers—offer some proof that listing a species isn’t the only way to conserve it.

Greater sage grouse. Image: US Fish and Wildlife Service/Jeannie Stafford

The sage grouse once roamed the American West in millions, but energy development and agriculture reduced its total habitat area by half. Today, between 200,000 and 400,000 birds span 11 states, across federal, state, and private land.

In 2010, when the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the sage grouse warranted protection under the Endangered Species Act, both environmentalists and private landowners alike were galvanized to prevent the bird from being listed, albeit for different reasons. The issue was, and still is complicated. But an official listing would have stifled human activities like farming and ranching. So with this economic threat looming over their heads, many local individuals were additionally motivated to conserve sage grouse habitat on their properties.

Approximately 4.4 million acres of sagebrush habitat were restored by more than 1,100 ranchers by the end of 2014, thanks to project called the Sage Grouse Initiative. Last year, the Bureau of Land Management, an agency in the Department of the Interior that manages public lands, announced plans to conserve 35 million acres of federal land for sage grouse.

“There are legal protections, and there are conservation actions. People committed to making conservation actions happen. A lot of efforts were already going, and people are still continuing their work,” Thad Heater, National Coordinator of the Sage Grouse Initiative, said.

A prevailing theory among environmental groups is that none of this would have happened were it not for the Endangered Species Act. The mere possibility of a listing was the necessary ingredient for grassroots action.

“Would that have been possible without the Endangered Species Act? I don’t think so. Without that real concern and desire to avoid listing, I don’t think people would have come to table with the same seriousness,” Greenberger echoed.

“Some people don’t believe [the sage grouse protections] are strong enough,” Pang said.

Still, there’s some value in imagining the predicament species would be in without the Endangered Species Act. Facing poor odds, perhaps local regulations can pick up where federal ones left off. States that prioritize wildlife might even strengthen their own laws to protect them.

As with many issues, Trump’s ultimate influence remains to be seen. Congress, however, is much more likely to destroy the law as we know it, making the Endangered Species Act as imperiled as the very creatures it’s helped to conserve. This would undoubtedly be tragic, but we shouldn’t forget that behind the Endangered Species Act are people determined to enforce it, and as long as they’re still around, there’s no reason to give up hope.

from Can Species Be Saved Without the Endangered Species Act?

Deplorable Trump Bots Are Now Hawking Obama Merch

President Trump talks a lot of game when it comes to the economy. But it appears one economy—the economy of “deplorable” Twitter bots—has turned on him, and is now flipping Barack Obama merchandise. Sad! What’s more amusing is that some of them haven’t even bothered to change their pro-Trump bios.

A couple of months ago, an extremely popular mug saying, “Enjoying my hot cup of LIBERAL TEARS all thanks to President-elect Donald J. Trump,” began making its way around Twitter. The phrase was already a meme at that point, but for some reason, Trump supporters preferred it in drinkable form. Photos of the mug were all over the site, mostly from #MAGA accounts trying to hawk them.

Screenshot: Twitter

Screenshot: Twitter

But, as a report from The Outline discovered, most of these accounts were almost certainly bots. And they all linked to an online seller at TeeChip.com. If you haven’t heard of them, be thankful, because it turns out TeeChip is the target of numerous customer complaints to the Better Business Bureau for shady practices, not limited to alleged fraud and art theft.

Motherboard checked out a few of these accounts and noticed the “LIBERAL TEARS” merch had swiftly been replaced by a #ThankYouObama mug. Again, the links directed to a page on TeeChip’s site. Likewise, a Facebook page that had also been advertising the Trump mug now sells the one with Barack and Michelle Obama on it.

The bar is low when it comes to bot activity on Twitter, but it’s mildly funny seeing ones with pro-Trump bios tweet “THE GREATEST MUG OF OBAMA.” Whoever created them obviously has no qualms about shilling across the aisle.

Still, while an actual human isn’t behind the most active of these accounts, @SherriH83856824, its profile photo was stolen from a very real person.

The woman shown in a “Make America Great Again” hat is actually a sophomore at the University of Buffalo named Jennie Gibson. In November last year, Gibson was interviewed and photographed by the school’s student paper about the reasons she supports Trump.

Screenshot: University of Buffalo/The Spectrum

As you can see, these are clearly the same photo:

Screenshot: Twitter

We reached out to Gibson and asked how she felt about her photo being used by a fake Twitter account.

“Frustrated. They do not have permission to use the photo and I do not know who to contact in order to have it removed. I am not affiliated with their sales and I do not appreciate being used as their face,” Gibson told Motherboard.

Unfortunately, according to Twitter’s impersonation policy, fake accounts that pretend to be real people are only subject to suspension. Under Twitter’s own rules, an account like @SherriH83856824 might be perfectly fine, since it doesn’t necessarily “portray another person in a misleading or deceptive manner.” Even though “Sherri” comes across as a real person, it might not be seen as intentionally appropriating Gibson’s personality.

If there’s a positive side to Trump being President of the United States, maybe its that his bots will finally shut up.

from Deplorable Trump Bots Are Now Hawking Obama Merch

The Transfer of Government Twitter Accounts Wasn't So Peaceful

One of the most visible transfers of executive power happened today on Twitter. The official @POTUS account was handed off to President Trump, and former-President Obama re-assumed his personal handle, @BarackObama. (Trump predictably continued to tweet from his personal account long into the inauguration, however.)

Hi everybody! Back to the original handle. Is this thing still on? Michelle and I are off on a quick vacation, then we’ll get back to work.

Barack Obama January 20, 2017

But some Twitter users are complaining that despite never following @POTUS in the first place, the presidential handle is suddenly showing up in their timelines. Somehow, they claim, Twitter had automatically followed it for them.

Folks: Check if you

Graeme January 21, 2017

“I specifically UNFOLLOWED this account earlier today. Yet now I am following it again without having resubscribed,” one user tweeted.

“@POTUS turned up in my feed despite me not following, willingly or otherwise,” said another person. “Not a promoted tweet. Very strange. Blocked!”

A spokesperson for Twitter told Motherboard they couldn’t comment on these specific claims, but said that post-inauguration, Twitter automatically migrated the followers of @POTUS over to the newly created @POTUS44 account, which acts as an archive for President Obama’s tweets.

The same was done for @FLOTUS44, belonging to Michelle Obama, and @VP44, belonging to former-Vice President Biden.

As you can see, both versions have somewhat similar follower counts.

This doesn’t explain why some people who claim to have never followed @POTUS in the first place are now doing so. Since Twitter wouldn’t verify whether a glitch caused this to happen, we can’t say for sure whether this is the case. But the migration of millions of users is no simple feat, and perhaps the auto-following went both ways in some cases.

It’s also curious that Twitter kept mum about following accounts on behalf of its users. This isn’t something the company has done before, but Twitter is a relatively new medium for presidents, and this is the first time handles ever needed to be transitioned from one administration to another.

Other federal agencies also had issues with Twitter today, albeit slightly less technical. At one point, the National Park Service was retweeting subtle inauguration shade aimed at President Trump, like a comparison of Trump’s significantly smaller attendance numbers compared to Obama’s own swearing-in. According to a report from Gizmodo, however, someone within the agency decided to muzzle the account, and all tweets have been suspended until further notice.

Are we likely to see more Twitter snafus in the coming days? We're only four tweets into the Trump White House at the time of writing, and so far they're just as dignified as when Obama had @POTUS. The only problem is the account's horribly low resolution header image, which is an embarrassment to this great nation.

from The Transfer of Government Twitter Accounts Wasn't So Peaceful

As Literal Nazis Abuse Twitter, CEO Asks How to Improve the Platform

Technology’s latest thought exercise comes from none other than Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who tweeted this summons for constructive criticism yesterday:

Following in the footsteps of Brian Chesky: what

jack December 29, 2016

Dorsey was apparently inspired by a similar tweet sent by Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky earlier this week. And while the Twitter co-founder and top exec has done things like this before, yesterday’s request felt especially loaded, considering the company’s rough year dealing with harassment outbreaks, and targeted abuse by white supremacist groups and literal Nazis.

People responding to Dorsey’s tweet posed a variety of suggestions, but many asked him to improve Twitter’s current status quo for handling harassment. The company recently took baby-steps in this regard; pushing new features like a quality filter and better muting capabilities. But Twitter has yet to uniformly enforce broad-sweeping action against hate-speech or the spread of private information.

Several people offered Dorsey specific ideas for how he could make Twitter a safer, less hostile place—such as locked hashtags that make it easier to ban abusive users, a point system, or removing one’s handle entirely from conversation threads—but Dorsey refused to say much more than the equivalent of “we’re working on it.”

I asked Twitter for more information regarding Dorsey’s decision to solicit advice from the public, and a spokesperson for the company said they had no comment beyond the CEO’s tweets. The company also declined to comment on why Dorsey was acknowledging some topics but not others.

For the most part, Dorsey seemed excited to address criticisms about Twitter’s user experience. Requests for tools like bookmarking, list organization, topic searching, and tweet threading were met with optimistic replies. Dorsey said he’s “thinking a lot” about tweet editing.

But other requests, especially those dealing with harassment, abuse reports, and transparency were either ignored, or seemingly dismissed as things on an eventual to-do list.

If you’ve ever submitted an abuse report on Twitter, you’ll know the process is often performative. One of the most visible complaints regarding harassment is how infrequently action is taken when a single, regular user files an abuse report. Sometimes, Twitter’s vetting processes can’t even identify blatant hate-speech.

Lmao a story in 4 parts jay caspian kang December 29, 2016

Earlier this year, BuzzFeed News conducted an informal survey of 2,700 Twitter users, and found that 29 percent of people reported receiving no response from Twitter after submitting an abuse report. Approximately 18 percent were reportedly told the abusive content they had flagged was actually allowed, according to Twitter’s own guidelines.

What’s perhaps more frustrating than inaction, however, is that users aren’t privy to information that explains how their report was handled internally by Twitter. For example, we still have no idea who looks at abuse reports, how many are processed each day, and what criteria staff use to determine whether something qualifies as harassment.

More transparency from the company could reveal why hate-speech is often (anecdotally) permitted by Twitter’s anti-harassment protocols. What’s the diversity breakdown of Twitter’s community management team? How are they trained to identify abuse? And how does this vary regionally?

Dorsey’s behavior after asking for improvements mirrors Twitter’s overall approach to dealing with its abuse problem: Yes, it’s a “top priority,” and yes, they’re currently working on it. But it’s complicated, and for the time being, we’ll have to patiently wait.

Only, we know the company can do something about harassment on its platform—and right now. High-profile users have been known to receive immediate treatment if they complain to Dorsey directly. When the actress Leslie Jones was repeatedly attacked on Twitter in June, her experience resulted in the near-immediate suspension of Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos.

Sometimes, individual abuse reports do result in consequences, although randomly, and extremely unreliably. As Motherboard has written about before, Twitter’s anti-harassment tools are good, but they’re not enough.

Just like Facebook, which confronted its position as a media company this year after a slew of News Feed fumbles and the unfortunate censorship of a historic war photo, Twitter should decide what it really wants to be: a pure free speech platform, or a platform where all communities can safely participate. It can’t have both, but it can set rules and draw lines, and decide how to enforce them.

For now, I guess we can get excited about the hint that editable tweets are probably coming.

from As Literal Nazis Abuse Twitter, CEO Asks How to Improve the Platform