AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the impact of cuts by the Trump administration that are dismantling essential services provided by the federal government, we turn to some of the voices featured in a new series made by members of Federal Workers Against DOGE, which now has about 2,000 current and former federal workers. The project is called I Do Solemnly Swear and features a dozen current federal workers across agencies like FAA, CDC, EPA and the IRS. They shared their testimonials anonymously. This is an employee of the Internal Revenue Service speaking about tech companies collecting data from the IRS.

IRS EMPLOYEE: You’ve got contractors like Palantir coming in, and you’ve got Microsoft and all of these tech guys who were standing at the inauguration together, working together with federal agencies on your data, on your information. And I have not read enough sci-fi novels to see or to understand what’s coming or what’s happening. I’m trying to piece together how the IRS is going to shift away from tax compliance and the fairness aspect into using the IRS Criminal Investigation officers as police officers.

We don’t think that the people that were elected are now the people that they warned us about. We can’t comprehend that our data is going to be used in malicious ways by the federal government. So, now who’s the bad guys? And we just don’t know. But what we’re seeing is this administration is testing everything, including laws. “Hey, can we get away with this?” I would bet that in the long term what we will see is that government will have to repair the damage that is being done by DOGE.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was an Internal Revenue Service worker featured in the new series I Do Solemnly Swear. This is another testimonial featuring a FAA, a Federal Aviation Administration, worker describing the FAA regulations being removed.

FAA WORKER: You know, we say at the FAA that our rules are written in blood. And what that means is every rule that we have to regulate air traffic control and pilots, every single one of those was created because there was a disaster and people died. We have people coming in to FAA now saying they know a better way to do it, when they don’t even know why FAA does things the way it does. The rules are not written in crayon for people to come in and try to haphazardly change things without recognizing that when things were done a different way, people died.

It’s so difficult to see people who really do want to do the job well put into these awful situations where they’re forced to choose between protecting the public or protecting their jobs. That’s not something we should have to choose between, when you see leadership cutting corners instead of doing their due diligence, firing people indiscriminately, no matter how mission critical they are.

You know, I think if you asked me today if I would feel safe getting on a plane in this country, I would say yes. You know, maybe I’m an optimist, but I believe in our frontline staff, and they work so hard to make this one of the safest places in the world to fly on an airplane. But, you know, ask me that question again in six months, and I might give you a different answer.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s a Federal Aviation Administration worker, a worker at the FAA, featured in the new series I Do Solemnly Swear.

For more, we’re joined by the series’ director and co-producer, Laura Nix, a Peabody Award-winning, Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Laura. Congratulations on this audio series. Talk about the significance of it now. I mean, even as you come out with the series, a number of the people that you spoke to, who were still working, so wanted to protect their identities, have been fired or laid off or, what, “riffed” — reduction in force.

LAURA NIX: Thanks for having me.

The series is speaking to people who are — I’d say almost everyone in the series is still working inside the government, and that’s why they remained anonymous. They spoke to us at great risk, because right now, if they were able to reveal themselves, they would probably be fired, or they could face the risk of criminal prosecution. But what we learn from them is how essential services that Americans have thought that we could depend upon for decades are being dismantled across almost every agency in the government.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what happened to the EPA workers who signed — I think it was about 150 of them — who signed a declaration of dissent? Weren’t most of them immediately escorted off out of their offices?

LAURA NIX: By signing that dissent, they were all immediately put on administrative leave. And that includes one of the people that we interviewed in the series, who was not the woman who spoke earlier, but another person. And the risk of people being able to speak out right now is highly dangerous for them. And that, in and of itself, should be an alarm bell for all of us, that people just can’t even talk about what’s going on inside their workplaces. That’s why we did these interviews.

AMY GOODMAN: This is an EPA worker discussing his fears about the future as DOGE continues to slash funding and fire workers.

EPA WORKER: They are slashing government funding, firing career employees. Why are we cutting all these employees? No one can give us answers. Our water, our air, our land are protected by people. And it doesn’t magically happen that these programs exist and people are healthy.

The environmental justice employees are the ones that are protecting our most vulnerable populations, and they’re going to be let go because of Trump’s DEI agenda. “Environmental justice” isn’t a buzzword that’s meant for political advantage. In wealthy, affluent neighborhoods, you don’t find, you know, garbage dumps. You don’t find factories. You don’t find cancer alleys. Environmental justice is a science. We’re making sure that these polluting industries don’t get away with it scot-free. You create this exodus of knowledge, there’s not going to be these scientists to protect the people from deadly contaminants.

People forget that federal workers are also taxpayers. And I can assure you and everyone else that, as taxpayers, we don’t want what they’re doing. DOGE is harming the public. It’s harming the taxpayers. The real profound impacts aren’t going to be within his presidency. It’s going to be everything that happens in the future. And we might not even realize it’s happening when it does. That’s what’s keeping me up at night.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s an environmental — an EPA worker, part of Laura Nix’s remarkable series, I Do Solemnly Swear. One of the Veteran Health Administration, VA employee warned that suicide prevention lines for veterans are understaffed and overwhelmed, raising alarm for life-or-death consequences. I think that population, veterans, has one of the largest suicide rates. Can you talk about that?

LAURA NIX: Yeah, I was really struck by the VHA worker that I spoke to. They’re incredibly dedicated to their veteran clients, and they spoke very emotionally about how worried they are about their welfare in the future. And the series is directed — my co-creator, Marc Weiss, and I felt it was very important to focus on not just the illegality of the firings, but the impact on Americans of the hollowing out of these services and benefits. And we’ve depended for a very long time, thinking that these benefits and these — the safety of our highways, our water, our airspace is safe, but we’re learning that these are all being taken away. In the instance of VHA —

AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.

LAURA NIX: OK. This is a — this is a population that needs help, and they’re very dedicated. These public servants are dedicated and committed to providing services.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. I think 18 veterans die by suicide each day. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.