URGENT- NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT

Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander, JD, MPA
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Airspace Defense Programs

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/charles-spitzer-stadtlander-jd-mpa-9b018b25_urgent-national-security-threat-i-work-activity-7296973991716499456-31eV/ 

16 February 2025

I work(ed) for the FAA National Defense Programs (NDP). My position is/was a national security critical-designated job that was supposed to be exempted from the massive (and unlawful) firings of probationary employees.

On Saturday morning at 12:43AM CST, while I was actively working on an extremely important and classified project in response to a credible threat to America's national security, I was fired.

Before I was fired, the official DOGE Facebook page started harassing me on my personal Facebook account after I criticized Tesla and Twitter. Less than a week later, I was fired, despite my position allegedly being exempted due to national security.

For those who do not know, FAA NDP is tasked with protecting the National Air Space from threats such as missiles, enemy drones, aircraft used as weapons (think 9-11), and so forth.

FAA NDP is a small, yet critical part of protecting the American public and many of our border states that are at risk of attack from our foreign adversaries such as China and Russia.

In March 2024 - I was recruited from my job as Legislative Director at the DC Government to the FAA NDP for the purpose of working on a critical national defense project and in response to a grave and credible threat to the American Air Space.

While working for the FAA NDP, I served as the FAA Lead to the DoD for Open Mission Systems and Data Rights on an urgent project underway in response to a credible national defense threat to America's National Air Space.

When DOGE fired me, they turned off my computer and wiped all of my files without warning. I had just finished a classified meeting at Hill AFB in SLC and was on my way home when I was fired. I was also scheduled to be at Hanscom AFB this upcoming week for additional briefings.

I will be appealing my termination based on political retaliation - which happened in the same unsigned form letter others received - and which my boss and FAA leadership appear to have had no idea of, thought was exempted, and vehemently disagreed with.

My boss and FAA leadership had actively advocated for my position to be excluded from DOGE terminations due to the grave national security implications of my work and believed that such an exemption had been granted.

I had also received excellent performance evaluations and even received a valuing for performance pay raise in January as the FAA is one of the only federal agencies that gives pay raises based on merit and performance.

I decided over the weekend that I want to talk publicly about what happened - especially the harassment I received from DOGE on my personal social media accounts prior to my being fired simply for criticizing Tesla and Twitter (X).

I’m also deeply concerned about DOGE's disregard of the national security implications of my termination.

I believe that the public has a right to know that America's national security has been made less safe.