Alexander Smith’s PowerPoint presentation doesn’t appear designed to court controversy. The slides, focused on declining maternal health in Gaza, cite public health data from the United Nations and World Health Organization. His employer, the U.S. Agency for International Development, had selected him to share it at the government agency’s Global Gender Equality Conference.
But just before the conference, an issue of contention emerged.
A single slide mentioned international humanitarian law in context of the health crisis in Gaza. USAID staff cited the slide and discussion of international law as potential fodder for leaks, documents and emails Smith shared with The Intercept show. Despite Smith’s willingness to make revisions, his presentation was eventually canceled. On the last day of the conference, he found himself out of a job.
“I thought it is really obscene that misinformation can go out freely out into the world [about Gaza], but I can’t talk about the reality of starving pregnant women,” said Smith, who worked as a contracted senior adviser at USAID on gender and material health. “We can’t even whisper about that in a conference on that topic.”
Ah the land of the free
BTW, this is a real violation of free speech… Negative consequences from the government for speaking… Even in the context of your own work responsibility
No, it’s not, the governemnt can censor its own workers or speech that its workers make. The government can censor itself.
He didn’t even make the speech. Nothing he did could be considered misconduct or insubordination.
A government employee will be censored for the speech that that employee puts out, full stop.
Same way as if that employee put out a hate filled speech about gay people.
True, but in this case he hadn’t even put it out at all yet.
Did you even read my comment?
Aside from the correctness of the ruling or this situation. I’m guessing if Citizens United ruled ‘money equals speech’, then making/distributing a powerpoint probably also will be categorized as ‘speech’.
So Americans only have free speech when the government says it’s ok?
I’m mean, I know freedom of speech is a narrower concept than most people realize but if the government can retaliate against you because you would share factual evidence as part of your job, then you guys really don’t have freedom of speech
I mean, I guess you guys beat North Korea in this topic and … That’s about it
It’s more like when you work for the government, you’re allowed to say what in a personal context. Once you start throwing around a title linked to the government, you’re no longer speaking as yourself, youre speaking as the government. The government can tell you what the government is allowed to say.
It’s the difference between an employee of the coast guard joining Greenpeace vs. That employee publicly saying the United States Coast Guard is joining Greenpeace. The coast guard can’t fire an employee for their own political beliefs, but they can totally fire a guy for saying shit the coast guard doesn’t want while representing the coast guard. Public speaking and seminars and shit like this have explicit rules about who can say what and when as a government employee in an official capacity.
Free Speech™*
*(Available only for the bourgeoisie ruling class. Terms and conditions may apply)
The US government can not censor speech for private citizens except in extremely limited terms.
This is a government employee communicating on behalf of the government. The government has every right to censor the speech that it puts out.
Also, for what it’s worth, the US has much stronger free speech protections than the EU. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up for debate.
deleted by creator
It’s a violation of free speech, it’s just not a violation of US law. Free speech is not the first amendment.
How? It’s not easy or quick to fire a government employee. It can take months.
In the US, many government workers are contractors, who are easier to fire. Full time employees of the government are less common, and as you said are harder to fire, get better benefits, etc.
It should be noted that this shift has happened in the last 30 years or so. Before that civil servants were the norm and contractors the exception. Civil service used to be a very good job that had some of the best benefits you could find, including some of the last remaining pension programs. You could live a very decent middle class life being a civil servant. Contractors are no cheaper for the government but it does move the liability from them to a 3rd party private employer. And now all the money goes to the business men who get the contracts and pay their employees a pittance with nearly no benefits.
Everything you said is still true. As long as you are an office worker that’s all correct. The government does still contact out most work but most offices still have plenty of government employees. It’s just now the government is more of an oversight and managerial role for 80% of it’s employees. Besides things like hr and finance. It’d be nice if the government actually did things again.
Outside of leave accrual (which is still inferior compared to the EU), benefits and pay for the average government worker aren’t really any better at this point. Plenty of supervisors pulling 100-150K+, but that usually also includes having to live in high cost of living areas like DC.
The best benefit is you can’t be terminated without reason. It takes real, documented issues to terminate someone. Very good job security.
On GS and GG plans you get both cost of living adjustments (depends on wh or Congress) and you get regular raises with step increases.
The leave is excellent. 4-8hr/2 weeks. And 4 hours sick, no cap. They also can’t deny leave without a reason and rescheduling.
Health insurance plans are pretty good. HDHP, CO pay, deductible, multiple agencies.
Pension is a big one. Being able to retire and have a pension, social security, and 5% matching savings plan (traditional and Roth) is pretty much unheard of.
You also probably have union representation depending on your agency.
Biggest downside is pay. If you’re technical or very competitive you’ll not make as much. There’s a cap on civilian pay due to a stupid law saying you can’t earn more than the vice president, so every rank is staggered below that. They really need to consolidate ranks below gs5. Those are poverty wages.
Pension is part of it, but having access to fed gov health insurance after you retire is bigger. My brother retired a FedGov critter and my IRA and 401k from years of corporate work will exceed his pension… But not his insurance.
Also jealous of his stability and the “retire at 45, start a new life” angle
Oof, that is a very good point. The retirement benefits are huuuuge. That said, I have very little trust that these benefits will not be whittled away to nothing by the time I qualify for them.
If they’re still there by the time i hit retirement age (65 ish now, might be higher later), awesome, but I’m not going to make plans based on that assumption.
Yeah, I always forget about carrying the insurance over. My parents have quote a few complaints about Medicare.
How did he retire at 45? Did his agency approve VERA after 25 years?
Can’t really fire contractors either. You’d have to get their PM to reassign them. I’ve never seen a contract that allowed the government to dictate the contractors hiring. That contractor might decide to fire the employee at government request but that isn’t required.
I wouldn’t say contractors in government offices are less common than government workers. I can’t read the article but I’m assuming this is actually in USAID and not a contractor facility.
Edit: ah wait the blurb is different than the quoted text. It said “pressured to resign” and senior advisor. That’s quite a bit different and I don’t know who would actually resign unless they thought it would impact them returning to high profile private industry.
At least when I worked at the NIH there were far more contractors than FTEs, but other places might be different
He did something serious. He told the truth about Gaza. It’s not like he did something minor, like sabotage the nation’s postal network to try to throw the election.
He wasn’t fired, he resigned. It also mentions he was a contractor, not an employee.
Media literacy tip: Headlines are written to get clicks, and shouldn’t be trusted. This headline says he lost his job, and he was being paid by the government so it’s not a straight up lie that he lost his government job. But the headline is meant to lead you to assume that he was a government employee that was fired. A headline like “Government Contractor Resigns after Presentation on Gaza was Cancelled” would be more accurate but lead to different assumptions which would be less likely to lead to clicks.
Late last week, Smith said he got a call from the company that contracted his position with USAID. He was told he could either resign or be terminated over “personality differences.”
Yeah, it was entirely his choice to resign voluntarily /s
Are you implying someone put a gun to his head? If not, what exactly are you implying?
Loads of conspiracy theories abound, I think it’s important to be clear and not make nebulous implications.
Gun to his head? Conspiracy theories? WTF?
How is ‘resign or be fired’ in any way a ‘voluntary’ resignation?
They could’ve just fired him. He’s a contractor, they just end the contract. That’s what it means to be a contractor.
They gave him an option to resign, but they didn’t have to give him that choice.
In hindsight they shouldn’t have given him that option, the whole point of that is preserve everyone’s reputation. Instead this guy publicized it so it would’ve been easier to just end the contract.
I mean the term firing isn’t really accurate when it’s a contractor. Anyway USAID contractors are the scum of the Earth, not having to pay him for bullshit powerpoint presentations that he just copy and pasted from un.org means more money could potentially be sent to developing countries.
Understand that USAID budgets a relatively meager $150 million for Palestinians and this guy’s pay for this Powerpoint presentation would likely be coming out of that budget. A lot of foreign aid never leaves the country and actually just goes to these contractors. They’re scum of the Earth grifters.
There are degrees of coercion. No, there was no literal gun to his head, but the only choice is how he was walking out that door. Keeping his job was not an option.
They, and you, can use whatever weasel words you want, this guy didn’t choose to leave his position.
Late last week, Smith said he got a call from the company that contracted his position with USAID. He was told he could either resign or be terminated over “personality differences.”
Forcing someone to either resign or be fired is pretty much firing them.
It really isn’t. He’s a contractor it’s part of the deal, you get paid more money, but contract can be ended at any time. They decided to end the contract and gave the option to resign.
And that “contract ending” (firing) came about because of his views on Israel’s Genocide. Him being a government contractor is besides the point since there was almost certainly governmental pressure to remove him. Whether it was hard or soft pressure.
You’re making a lot of assumptions based solely on the word of a scumbag contractor that made a living siphoning off money that could go to impoverished countries by giving bullshit powerpoint presentations.
Well you’re making a whole lot of assumptions yourself. And mine are based on Occams Razor and the US governments consistent actions to stifle free speech that is critical of Israel. The US government has a vested interest in stopping people from revealing the horrors of Israel’s Genocide.
Yeah… you don’t understand Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is they cut the guy loose because he’s wasn’t worth the money they were paying him.
Piling a conspiracy theory on top of that is actually the exact opposite of Occam’s Razor.
According to the article, his presentation was cut from the convention, yet he attended
and presentedanyway.He was given the option of termination or resignation, and chose to resign.
I’m glad he advocated for truth, and grateful he spoke out after resignation.
It doesn’t sound like he presented to me, just that he attended to see other presentations.
Good point. I think you’re right. Reading it again, I interpreted the word “nonetheless” as against direction, but it only states that he attended the conference.
Tell the truth, get fired.
Or even openly plan to tell the truth, it seems.
Have plans to tell the truth, get fired.
Offer to not tell the truth after having pointed it out, still get fired.
The US government is weird.
this is more like openly trade ideas about the possibility of stating legal facts
The only real cancel culture.
Is this a first amendment violation because this person is a govt employee?
Government employees in their official capacity can be limited, but not in private capacity. So if he’s speaking officially on behalf of his government employer they can decide what he can say.
He was also a contractor. Not sure if that makes a difference.
‘A single slide mentioned international humanitarian law in context of the health crisis in Gaza.’
“I wasn’t planning to stand up and yell ‘Israel is committing genocide,’” Smith said. “I was stating the laws.”
I don’t understand resigning versus letting them fire you and then taking it up with a lawyer.
Good riddance! USAID contractors are the scum of the Earth.
A lot of the foreign aid money that you’re told goes to a developing country actually stays in Washington DC area, siphoned off by these evil parasites.
I worked on a project where we identified the need to have a part time accountant to help a bunch of NGOs to get their books in order. USAID had money in the budget for this, it was all looking good. But then out of nowhere one of these bullshit contractors swooped in and instead of hiring a local accountant, the money instead went to the contractor who spent a week in the tourist area to give a few seminars in between trips to the beaches. Didn’t do jack shit to help anyone but made the equivalent to half a year’s salary for a local accountant which would have actually helped NGO’s that were teaching children how to read. He took all of that money for the week while he stayed at a fucking resort.
This guy would’ve probably made thousands of dollars (possibly >$10K) for his bullshit Powerpoint which was probably just stuff anyone can find on un.org. And it would’ve shown on the budget as foreign aid to the Palestinian people. Since the presentation was cancelled that money might actually get to the Palestinian people instead. Though who am I kidding, it will more likely go to another one of these assholes. But at least there’s a small chance some money might actually get to somewhere it can make a difference. If he showed the powerpoint he made by copying pasting stuff from un.org, it would’ve cost USAID thousands of dollars.
One less DC swamp rat siphoning off money from the developing world. Nothing of value was lost.
This is a pretty extreme view. Individual USAID contractors are not the scum of the earth. Most are well-meaning people who truly care about helping others, which is why they signed up to work in international development to begin with. A good portion are returned peace corps volunteers, or even immigrants to America from these developing countries. The idea that someone becomes an expert in maternal health in order to siphon off foreign aid money is kind of laughable.
That said, the industry that has formed around foreign aid is largely there because of the way the government has chosen to distribute aid money. A lot of this type of work was at one time done by the government, but the government has switched to a model where it uses the private sector to compete for technical work and because congress believes the private sector can be held accountable in a way the government can’t be. These companies are highly regulated. The amount of profit they can make is controlled by the government, and is typically only about 2-3% of the price of a contract. From that profit, they are liable to pay for any waste, fraud, or abuse if it is discovered.
The alternative some suggest would be to hand out millions of dollars to developing countries governments. Let me tell you from personal experience, most of these countries don’t have controls in place to appropriately manage this money. If we gave this money directly to developing countries, a good portion of it would end up misused. So, the government hires an American company to run projects and programs for it. Within these projects, typically all but one or two of the staff are host country nationals. That means most of the staff are locals, with just a few expats / Americans there.
Americans learned just who actually controls the reins of government.
Turns out maybe some of those right wing conspiracy theories might have had grains of truth to them.
Every accusation is a confession.
God damn, I’m getting tired of these headlines. They’re such obvious clickbait.
And annoying.
Edit: I’m talking about the “He did this. Now he’s this” not the content of the story
So dipshit shared classified information and got fired for it. Good to know.
I don’t see anywhere that the info he had on the slides was classified.
“I didn’t read the article, so I’m gonna make shit up”
