The Trump administration is planning to require all federal employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
The draft notice says that under the terms of the NDA, federal workers would be barred from sharing “non-public, confidential, or proprietary information” or “any sensitive, pre-decisional or deliberative material that is not currently publicly available and should not be disclosed under applicable law.” The new NDA would go beyond typical classified and unclassified designations, the Washington Post reported.
The notice will be published on Wednesday and will be open for a 30-day public comment period. The draft indicates that agencies will be able to decide whether or not to adopt the NDA.
The draft highlights several reports, including what it describes as “unauthorized disclosures” that were made to the New York Times and The Washington Post, on the raid in Venezuela at the start of the year, resulting in the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro. The draft claims that the leaked information “put the lives of members of the armed forces at risk, leading news organizations to delay ‘publishing what they knew to avoid endangering U.S. troops.’
The New York Times’ executive editor Joe Kahn has said, however, that the outlet did not have verified information on the raid, nor did it withhold publishing any such information at the request of the Trump administration.
“Contrary to some claims, however, The Times did not have verified details about the pending operation to capture Maduro or a story prepared, nor did we withhold publication at the request of the Trump administration,” Kahn explained.
OPM Director Scott Kupor compared the push towards NDAs to that of practices in the private sector, saying in a statement that “employees handling sensitive business or customer information are routinely required to sign confidentiality agreements, and the federal government should not be held to a lower standard.”
The controversial move to further muzzle whistleblowers in the federal work force comes amid a wider push from the Trump administration to combat the dissemination of its internal operations.
In October, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mandated that Pentagon officials sign NDAs before they read in on projects.
Before assuming the presidency, Donald Trump was no stranger to using NDAs. He’s used them with his ex-wives, contestants on his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” and campaign staffers.
But there are legal limitations on using NDAs in the federal government, as federal law protects whistleblowers. The draft says that the new policy would not create “new substantive restrictions” on workers, and claims it would protect whistleblower rights.
Still, the NDA push within the federal government reflects a wider push by Trump to completely overhaul the federal workforce in his second term.
His administration’s aborted “Department of Government Efficiency Mission” led to around 300,000 people being let go from the federal workforce across 27 agencies. Tens of thousands of workers were later rehired, with back pay, after courts ruled they were unlawfully fired.
