Federal Reports

During a recent OIG investigation, we found that the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) has an internal policy that permits authorized senior staff to obtain access to employee emails to ensure “efficient and proper operation of the workplace,” or to search for “suspected misconduct.” We found, however, that the NIGC has no systems, processes, or procedures in place to approve, track, or account for internal email queries of employees’ emails.While we found no U.S. Department of the Interior policy that prohibited such queries, we are concerned about the negative effect this practice could have on employees making protected disclosures. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) issued a memorandum to all executive departments and agencies in February 2018 urging that policies and practices for monitoring employee communications “do not interfere with or chill employees from lawfully disclosing wrongdoing.”To avoid a chilling effect on NIGC employees seeking to engage in protected whistleblowing activity and to ensure adequate oversight of its access to individual Government email accounts, we made one recommendation that the NIGC establish formal policies and procedures consistent with the OSC’s guidance that also provide a way for the NIGC to track and retain all requests and productions.We issued this management advisory to the NIGC Chairman.

The Office of Inspector General is tasked with ensuring efficiency, accountability, and integrity in the U.S. Postal Service. We also have the distinct mission of helping to maintain confidence in the mail and postal system, as well as to improve the Postal Service's bottom line. We use audits and investigations to help protect the integrity of the Postal Service. Our Semiannual Report to Congress presents a snapshot of the work we did to fulfill our mission for the six-month period ending March 31, 2020. Our dynamic report format provides readers with easy access to facts and information, as well as succinct summaries of the work by area. Links are provided to the full reports featured in this report, as well as to the appendices.

To see our report, please click on the link below