Investigation Reveals Government Has Been Loving Us Even Harder Than We Thought

A six-month investigation by Government Is Love has uncovered what may be the most significant revelation about government overreach — we mean, over-caring — in modern American history.

According to thousands of pages of classified documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request (which took 14 months to process, because the Bureau of Information Reluctance wanted to make sure we really wanted the information), the federal government has been operating 47 previously unknown programs designed to help, monitor, guide, supervise, and aggressively love American citizens in ways they never consented to, never knew about, and explicitly would not have wanted.

The programs, which collectively employ over 12,000 federal workers and cost an estimated $8.3 billion annually, range from the merely invasive to the breathtakingly paternalistic. Each one was created by executive order, buried in omnibus spending bills, or simply willed into existence by a mid-level bureaucrat who “thought it would be nice.”

“When we saw the scope of these programs, we were stunned,” said Margaret Memo, lead investigator on the project. “We always knew the government was doing more than it told us. We just didn’t know it had hired people to monitor what we eat for breakfast.”

Below is a summary of the most significant secret programs uncovered by our investigation.

Program #1: The Undisclosed Hug Initiative (UHI)

Budget: $340 million/year Employees: 1,200 Status: Active since 2019

The Undisclosed Hug Initiative is exactly what it sounds like, except worse.

Under UHI, the government employs a network of 1,200 field agents whose sole mission is to provide “unsolicited emotional support” to citizens identified as “insufficiently comforted by existing government programs.” These agents embed themselves in communities as postal workers, librarians, and that friendly person at the coffee shop who always remembers your name, and they are tasked with delivering what internal documents call “ambient warmth” — a constant, low-level emotional presence designed to make citizens feel cared for without knowing they’re being cared for by the government.

Internal memos reveal the program’s true scope:

MEMO: UHI Field Operations Update, Q3 2024

“Agent Thompson (cover: friendly barista, Portland, OR) has successfully delivered 847 instances of ambient warmth this quarter, including 312 ‘good mornings,’ 215 instances of remembering a customer’s order, and 320 warm smiles. Customer satisfaction with the coffee shop has increased 34%, and none of the targets suspect government involvement.

Note: Agent Thompson has requested a transfer. He says six years of being relentlessly friendly is ‘destroying him on the inside.’ Request denied. The mission is too important.”

The UHI was created after a 2018 internal study found that 43% of Americans “do not feel sufficiently loved by the government.” Rather than question whether it’s the government’s job to make people feel loved, the Bureau of Emotional Infrastructure (BEI) created a program to love them covertly.

Dr. Patricia Patronize, BEI director, defended the program in leaked testimony:

“Citizens say they don’t want the government involved in their emotional lives. But citizens also say they want affordable housing and fiscal responsibility, so clearly they don’t know what they want. That’s why we’re here.”

Program #2: Project Bedtime

Budget: $215 million/year Employees: 890 Status: Active since 2020

Project Bedtime is a Department of Health and Human Services initiative that monitors when American citizens go to sleep and wake up, and cross-references that data with the CDC’s recommended sleep guidelines.

The program uses data from smart devices (fitness trackers, smartphones, smart mattresses, and that Alexa you bought because it was on sale and definitely isn’t listening to you) to build a comprehensive “Sleep Profile” for every American adult. Citizens who consistently get fewer than seven hours of sleep are flagged as “Sleep Noncompliant” and become the target of what internal documents call “Gentle Sleep Interventions.”

These interventions include:

Melatonin Mailings: Noncompliant citizens receive anonymous packages of melatonin gummies with a note that reads “From a friend.” The “friend” is the Department of Health and Human Services.
Strategic Boredom: The FCC, working in coordination with Project Bedtime, is authorized to make late-night television programming “incrementally more boring” to encourage sleep. A leaked memo confirms that the decision to air infomercials after midnight is not a programming choice — it’s a public health intervention.
The 10 PM Text: Noncompliant citizens may receive a text message at 10 PM that reads “Hey, just checking in — it’s getting late! Maybe time to wind down?” The message appears to come from a random contact in the citizen’s phone, but it is generated by a Project Bedtime algorithm. If you’ve ever received a suspiciously motherly text from “Dave from work” at 10 PM on a Tuesday, now you know why.

“Americans are not getting enough sleep, and when Americans don’t get enough sleep, they become cranky, unproductive, and more likely to question government policy,” read one internal justification memo. “A well-rested citizen is a compliant citizen. This program pays for itself.”

Program #3: Operation Grocery Cart

Budget: $780 million/year Employees: 2,400 Status: Active since 2017

Perhaps the most invasive program uncovered by our investigation, Operation Grocery Cart is a multi-agency effort to monitor, analyze, and influence the food purchasing decisions of every American.

Using data from loyalty cards, credit card transactions, and what documents describe as “strategic partnerships with major grocery retailers” (which is a polite way of saying the government has access to your shopping history), Operation Grocery Cart builds a detailed nutritional profile for every citizen. This profile is then evaluated against the USDA’s dietary guidelines, and citizens whose diets are deemed “insufficiently compliant” are targeted with interventions.

The interventions escalate in intensity:

Level 1: Nudging. The citizen begins seeing more advertisements for healthy foods on their social media feeds. Their grocery store’s app “coincidentally” features sales on vegetables. Their Spotify account starts playing songs with subliminal messages about fiber intake. (This last one was flagged by an internal ethics review but approved on the grounds that “no one has ever been harmed by thinking about fiber.”)

Level 2: Strategic Scarcity. Certain unhealthy items become “temporarily unavailable” at the citizen’s preferred grocery store. The ice cream aisle is “being restocked.” The chip section is “under renovation.” Meanwhile, the produce section has been expanded and illuminated like a cathedral. Employees in the produce section have been instructed to make eye contact and smile. Employees in the remaining junk food sections have been instructed to look disappointed.

Level 3: The Intervention. For citizens whose dietary noncompliance persists, a “Nutritional Wellness Specialist” — which is a government dietitian in civilian clothing — approaches the citizen in the grocery store and strikes up a “casual” conversation about healthy eating. Internal training materials instruct these specialists to “seem like a friendly stranger, not a federal agent, even though that is exactly what you are.”

Rebecca Roughage, a former Operation Grocery Cart field operative, spoke to us on condition of anonymity:

“I spent three years pretending to be a regular shopper at a Kroger in suburban Virginia. My job was to stand near the frozen pizza section and, when someone reached for a DiGiorno, casually say something like, ‘Oh, have you tried the cauliflower crust? It’s so good.’ I said that sentence approximately 4,000 times. I have not eaten cauliflower since I left the program. I may never eat cauliflower again.”

Program #4: The Wardrobe Advisory Commission (WAC)

Budget: $125 million/year Employees: 450 Status: Active since 2021

Yes. The government has opinions about what you wear.

The Wardrobe Advisory Commission, housed within the Department of Commerce, uses satellite imagery, surveillance camera footage, and social media posts to monitor the clothing choices of American citizens. While the program does not (yet) mandate specific outfits, it does maintain a database called the National Wardrobe Registry (NWR), which categorizes every citizen’s clothing into one of five categories:

Compliant: Clothing that meets federal guidelines for workplace appropriateness, weather suitability, and “general visual acceptability.”
Marginally Compliant: Clothing that is technically acceptable but “raises questions.” Examples include cargo shorts, Crocs worn outside the home, and any t-shirt with a political message.
Under Review: Clothing that the WAC is currently evaluating for potential noncompliance. This category includes Hawaiian shirts (under review since 2022, no decision expected before 2027).
Noncompliant: Clothing that the WAC has determined is inappropriate for public wear. The full list is classified, but leaked documents suggest it includes socks with sandals, matching family outfits outside of holidays, and anything from a clearance bin at an airport gift shop.
Flagged for Intervention: Reserved for citizens whose clothing choices are deemed “a potential public morale hazard.” Intervention involves a government-funded subscription to a fashion magazine and, in extreme cases, a personal visit from a WAC Style Compliance Officer.

“We’re not telling people what to wear,” said a WAC spokesperson in leaked internal correspondence. “We’re telling people what not to wear. There’s a difference. A subtle, constitutionally questionable difference, but a difference.”

Program #5: The Friendship Allocation Program (FAP)

Budget: $290 million/year Employees: 1,100 Status: Active since 2022

The most astonishing program uncovered by our investigation is the Friendship Allocation Program, a Department of Social Services initiative that assigns each American citizen a government-approved best friend.

According to program documents, FAP was created in response to what the Surgeon General called the “loneliness epidemic.” Rather than address the root causes of social isolation — such as the erosion of community institutions, the atomizing effects of social media, or the fact that people spend 40% of their waking hours complying with government paperwork — the government decided to simply assign friendships.

Each citizen is matched with a “Friendship Partner” based on an algorithm that considers:

Geographic proximity
Compatible personality types (as determined by the citizen’s social media activity, which the government definitely doesn’t monitor but somehow has extensive data on)
Similar consumer purchasing patterns (courtesy of Operation Grocery Cart)
Complementary sleep schedules (courtesy of Project Bedtime)
Compatible wardrobe choices (courtesy of the WAC)

The Friendship Partner is never informed that they have been assigned to you. They simply begin appearing in your life — at your gym, your coffee shop, your child’s soccer practice — and the government’s algorithm does the rest.

INTERNAL MEMO: FAP Success Metrics, Q2 2024

“Friendship partnerships are forming at a rate of 12,000 per month. 67% of assigned pairs have progressed to ‘casual acquaintance’ status. 34% have exchanged phone numbers. 12% have made plans to ‘grab coffee sometime’ (though only 3% have followed through, which is consistent with the national average for vague social commitments).

Challenges: 8% of assigned pairs actively dislike each other. 4% have described their Friendship Partner as ‘that weird person who keeps showing up everywhere.’ One citizen in Tallahassee has filed a restraining order against his assigned partner, which we are working to quash through back channels.”

Additional Programs Uncovered

Our investigation identified 42 additional programs, which we will detail in future reporting. A brief summary:

The Commute Optimization Bureau: Monitors citizens’ driving routes and “suggests” alternatives by strategically timing traffic lights to make their preferred route slower.
The Hobby Compliance Office: Tracks citizens’ recreational activities and flags hobbies that are “insufficiently productive.” Citizens who spend more than 10 hours per week on hobbies are sent brochures about volunteering for government programs.
Project Hydration: Monitors water intake through smart water bottles and sends alerts to citizens who aren’t drinking enough. (“You seem dehydrated. Have you considered water? — A Friend”)
The Weekend Accountability Initiative: Surveys citizens’ weekend plans through social media analysis and flags those who plan to “do nothing” as potentially depressed, triggering a wellness check.
The Pet Naming Advisory Council: Reviews pet names registered with veterinary clinics and flags names deemed “insufficiently dignified for the animal.” (A citizen in Boise was reportedly contacted about naming his cat “Senator Fluffybottom,” which was flagged as “potentially satirical toward government officials.”)

The Government’s Response

When contacted for comment, the Office of Management and Budget released the following statement:

“The programs described in this article represent the government’s unwavering commitment to the well-being of every American citizen. Some may call these programs ‘invasive,’ ‘unnecessary,’ or ‘a dystopian nightmare funded by taxpayer money.’ We call them love. And love doesn’t need a permission slip.

That said, if love did need a permission slip, we would be the ones issuing it. Form LP-1 is available on our website.”

Senator Franklin Fullcontrol (D-MD), chair of the Senate Committee on Citizen Oversight, was more direct:

“Look, the American people elected us to take care of them. They didn’t specify how much care they wanted, so we decided to err on the side of too much. If people wanted less government, they should have been more specific. That’s on them.”

What Comes Next

Our investigation is ongoing. We believe there are at least a dozen more programs we haven’t yet uncovered, including one that a redacted document refers to only as “Project Lullaby,” which appears to involve the government literally singing citizens to sleep through smart speakers.

We will continue to follow this story, assuming the Bureau of Investigative Journalism Oversight (BIJO) — which we just learned exists — allows us to.

In the meantime, if you’ve ever received an anonymous package of melatonin, been approached by a suspiciously friendly stranger in the produce aisle, or wondered why that one person from your gym keeps showing up at your dentist’s office, you now have your answer.

The government has been loving you even harder than you thought.

And it has absolutely no plans to stop.

This investigation was conducted over six months using Freedom of Information Act requests, leaked documents, and one very nervous whistleblower who insisted on meeting in a Denny’s at 2 AM, which Project Bedtime flagged as “sleep noncompliant.”

Becky Bureaucracy Senior Investigative Correspondent Government Is Love