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Shaun Southworth leading a federal employment training session with members of the Southworth PC team
 

Federal RTO Monitoring and Employee Rights

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Federal employees should pay close attention when an agency describes a monitoring tool as an office-space solution while the contract language points to “continuous compliance mon...

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OPM Health Data and Federal Employee Privacy

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Federal employees have reason to feel uneasy right now. The identity-theft protection offered after the 2015 OPM breach is beginning to expire, ten years after enrollment, even tho...

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DOGE Data Access Case Raises Privacy Act Risks

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A recent federal court ruling in Maryland has moved a high-stakes data privacy case into discovery—a phase that often determines what truly happened behind closed doors. For federa...

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Privacy Act Lawsuit Offers Hope After HHS RIF Errors

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A federal judge has allowed a significant Privacy Act lawsuit to move forward, and for former HHS employees impacted by last year’s Reduction in Force (RIF), that decision matters....

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The Government Admitted It Lost Track of Social Security Data

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Most Americans trust that their Social Security information is protected by some of the strictest safeguards in the federal government. Recent court filings, however, reveal a trou...

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Social Security Data Misuse and Federal Accountability

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Recent court filings by the Department of Justice revealed a deeply unsettling concession: individuals associated with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may ha...

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Supreme Court Fast-Tracks DOGE Access to Social Security Data

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On June 6, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a terse, unsigned order allowing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to access real-time Social Security data. The ruling ...

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The 4th Circuit Just Shielded Millions of Federal Records

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Yesterday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a major ruling with implications for every federal employee and retiree. By a narrow 9–6 vote, the court upheld Judge Holla...

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The Mindful Federal Employee is part of a broader public-education ecosystem from Shaun Southworth, Lydia Taylor, and Southworth PC. Use the resource that fits the question and the moment.

Podcast

Civil Rights for Civil Servants

Hear Shaun Southworth and Lydia Taylor explain federal employee rights, public service, workplace systems, and the people navigating them.

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About the people behind the work

Shaun Southworth & Lydia Taylor

Meet the federal employment attorneys behind this public-education work and the podcast Civil Rights for Civil Servants.

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