FCW Insider: Oct. 30

House Dems press OPM to block Trump's civil service overhaul

More than 30 House Democrats are calling for an immediate halt to the implementation of President Trump recent executive order to reclassify elements of the civil service as at-will employees. 10

White House mulls CXO role at agencies

The White House is considering whether to formalize the customer experience officer role, but also thinking about the position's impact on IT.

Interior IG: USGS director retaliated against whistleblower

A watchdog report alleges that an "impermissible, retaliatory motive" was behind the reassignment of a whistleblower at the U.S. Geological Survey.

Quick Hits

*** The National Urban League and the National Fair Housing Alliance are suing the Trump administration over the executive order purging certain concepts characterized as "divisive" from federal employee and contractor diversity training programs. The lawsuit seeks to block the implementation of the order immediately and alleges that the order unconstitutionally abridges the free speech rights of individuals at private companies, that the prohibitions contained in the order are unconstitutionally vague and that the order was made with the intent of discriminating against individuals based on their race, gender and sexual orientation. The lawsuit specifics that the named plaintiffs have been federal contractors and grant recipients.

*** The Social Security Administration launched a program to verify Social Security Numbers and match them to individual names and dates of birth as a way of cutting down on synthetic identity fraud. The Electronic Consent Based Social SSN Verification (eCBSV) program is being run through a group of nine banks, credit bureaus and others who can then offer verification to other institutions. The "permitted entities" who perform the matching are helping to underwrite the costs of the system, according to a 2019 contracting notice announcing the program. The service provided under the eCBSV program doesn't confirm identities, it matches data points to spot efforts to game the financial system by using incomplete information.