18f.gsa.gov/about/ - USA Government website shutting down

Politics and Social Issues
1

Hello want to try an experiment, try opening this government webpage - let me know if you can get in.
https://18f.gsa.gov
https://18f.gsa.gov/about/

I’m asking because I came across a letter for the American People, by ex-employees of 18f, and since the news media is also shutting down, I figure these stories are going to rely on individuals to share however one can, or cares to.

In 2024, 18F consisted of approximately 91 distributed employees working remotely across the United States. The organization previously peaked at over 250 employees in 2018. While staff numbers have decreased, 18F’s influence has grown through alumni who continue working in government technology, with 85% of departing staff in 2023 moving to other government technology positions. Its name refers to its office location in northwest Washington, D.C., on 18th and F Streets. 18F was within Technology Transformation Services, part of the Federal Acquisition Service.

In 2025 it seems under attack.
Who could have imagined such a thing happening?

An insider speaks out -

March 1, 2025

https://18f.org - non-partisan 18f civil servants speak out.

A letter to the American People:

For over 11 years, 18F has been proudly serving you to make government technology work better. We are non-partisan civil servants. 18F has worked on hundreds of projects, all designed to make government technology not just efficient but effective, and to save money for American taxpayers.

However, all employees at 18F – a group that the Trump Administration GSA Technology Transformation Services Director called “the gold standard” of civic tech – were terminated today at midnight ET.

18F was doing exactly the type of work that DOGE claims to want – yet we were eliminated.

When former Tesla engineer Thomas Shedd took the position of TTS director and met with TTS including 18F on February 3, 2025, he acknowledged that the group is the “gold standard” of civic technologists and that “you guys have been doing this far longer than I’ve been even aware that your group exists.” He repeatedly emphasized the importance of the work, and the value of the talent that the teams bring to government.

Despite that skill and knowledge, at midnight ET on March 1, the entirety of 18F received notice that our positions had been eliminated.

The letter said that 18F "has been identified as part of this phase of GSA’s Reduction in Force (RIF) as non-critical”.

“This decision was made with explicit direction from the top levels of leadership within both the Administration and GSA,” Shedd said in an email shortly after we were given notice.

This was a surprise to all 18F staff and our agency partners. Just yesterday we were working on important projects, including improving access to weather data with NOAA, making it easier and faster to get a passport with the Department of State, supporting free tax filing with the IRS, and other critical projects with organizations at the federal and state levels.

All of that work has now abruptly come to a halt. Since the entire staff was also placed on administrative leave, we have been locked out of our computers, and have no chance to assist in an orderly transition in our work. We don’t even have access to our personal employment data. We’re supposed to return our equipment, but can’t use our email to find out how or where.

Dismantling 18F follows the gutting of the original US Digital Service. These cuts are just the most recent in a series of a sledgehammer approach to the critical US teams supporting IT infrastructure.

Before today’s RIF, DOGE members and GSA political appointees demanded and took access to IT systems that hold sensitive information. They ignored security precautions. Some who pushed back on this questionable behavior resigned rather than grant access. Others were met with reprisals like being booted from work communication channels.

We’re not done yet.

We’re still absorbing what has happened. We’re wrestling with what it will mean for ourselves and our families, as well as the impact on our partners and the American people.

But we came to the government to fix things. And we’re not done with this work yet.

More to come.

Follow us on Bluesky - “Team 18F”

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As some maintenance and expertise is needed, I would not be surprised if a big tech company got a contract with US government.

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Sorta like privatizing swaths of our national military.
I always knew that allowing corporations to merge into behemoths that are more powerful than governments - dedicated to maximizing profits and not giving a flying fart for people - was a supremely bad idea, that would end in disaster, yeah guy, the disasters that we can witness unfold, if we choose to open our eyes, minds and hearts. But therein lies the rub.

I mean haven’t our leaders and the mega-rich profiteers shown, ever since the rise of industry and science that they have absolutely no emotional interest in what happens to anyone besides their own class. Without a scruple utterly destroying city after city and incinerating millions of people and then get up and doing it again.

Then we get great watersheds, like the Shock and Awe, War of Choice & Profiteers and political power grabs that guaranteed, that “war on terror” that ignored all the terror we ourselves inflicted, would truly become endless warfare. Where the American people simply stood silent waving their flags believing revenge was their best medicine. Individually people are awesome, en masse, they suck.

2001/2002

Corporate Warriors: The Rise and Ramifications of the Privatized Military Industry
(International Security, Vol. 26, No. 3, Winter 2001/2002.)

" … There is, however, one unifying link: When faced with such diverse security needs, they all sought external military support. Most important is where that support came from: not from a state or even an international organization but rather the global marketplace. It is located here that a unique business form has arisen that I term the privatized military firm (PMF). PMFs are profit-driven organizations that trade in professional services intricately linked to warfare.
They are corporate bodies that specialize in the provision of military skills including tactical combat operations, strategic planning, intelligence gathering and analysis, operational support, troop training, and military technical assistance.
2 With the rise of the privatized military industry, actors in the global system can access capabilities that extend across the entire spectrum of military activity from a team of commandos to a wing of fighter jets simply by becoming a business client. …

PMFs represent the newest addition to the modern battlefield …

The Emergence of the Privatized Military Industry …
Organization and Operation of the Privatized Military Industry

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The interesting part is that all these complications could be avoided by a simple upper limit on how big a company can be and how much wealth any individual can amass.

In nature this is an unwritten rule. You must live within its natural balancing limitations or you perish. Humans do not contribute enough to the natural cycles and the results are becoming evident.

It is no wonder that humans are classified as an invasive species. Where humans live nature becomes unbalaced and living things start dying. (Hellstrom Chronicles)

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I’ve been thinking that for decades.

Also better defining Fiduciary Responsibility to include the welfare of all people in the economic equation, and this planet’s complex systems that provide and sustain our life support systems.

But that would have required having serious discussions and even more serious soul searching, and we couldn’t do it within the party that was going so well. Now, well, here we are.

In was easy for individuals to figure it out, but impossible for vested interests and the masses of voters to think it through - heck they spent millions and billions to see to that. Doubt is our product and ruthless is our game. Heck all the polls cared about was low gas prices.

So now the trick is to live with ever increasing turmoil, and the way this winter has been, or hasn’t as the case is here in Four Corners, this could be a mighty vicious summer.

Quite a pickle . . .

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And that peoblem would be solved by all that extra wealth that becomes available for social services.

It’s not just that all the wealth becomes concentrated by a few of the most wealthy, but these people also pay relatively less taxes than the average working person.

If they were made to pay their fair share the economic crisis would be solved.

Bill Clinton took this approach and ended up with budget surplusses, that he envisioned would be applied to the national debt and the interest saving would be applied for social services. And it worked, until Bush redistributed the savings back to the wealthy in the form of tax cuts.
The influence of greed seems irresistible.

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True, and worse than that is the ultimate power they hold - if you got the megaphone, it doesn’t matter how much an idiot the speaker is, if that all the masses hear that’s all they can process.