Summary
NASA’s chief health and medical officer, Dr. James Polk, warned employees to be cautious about displaying badges in public due to reports of harassment.
His email followed an incident where a NASA employee was confronted at a Starbucks for being a federal worker.
The warning comes amid escalating rhetoric from the Trump administration, which has criticized federal employees and pushed for government downsizing. While NASA has avoided major layoffs, concerns persist.
Polk urged staff to stay vigilant and report incidents to the Office of Protective Services.
It’s pretty standard practice to put away your badge when not at the workplace.
I bet NASA employees have a lot less public harassment to worry about compared to the departments that are actively dismantling the government
Hiding your badges while not on work property is a physical security practice. If an attacker were to be trying to scan for RFID or NFC tags in an area they would usually only get the data from the badge, not the image/ID printed on the surface.
In this instance I think your right, it seems like its more likely doing more of that illegal DOGE shit, not some sophisticated attacker.
Its literally part of paperwork to even get the badge, for DoD at least, to not wear it outside the area its for…
Yeah. Any place you need a badge to get in is a place you don’t want to advertise. I wouldn’t want every person on the street knowing where I worked anyway.