The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) wants all government employees to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) following a series of what the White House described as unauthorized disclosures.
In a draft notice posted May 26, OPM said the NDAs would document federal employees’ acknowledgement and agreement to abide by federal laws when handling confidential government information. OPM said that includes information related to internal agency operations, personnel, procurement processes, or sensitive, pre-decisional, or deliberative material that is not publicly available.
“OPM believes that a governmentwide NDA form will promote consistency across Government, better protect confidential information, and better inform Federal employees of their rights and obligations regarding confidential information,” OPM said in its draft.
The proposed NDA would be optional, and agencies would be able to choose to use it and would apply to new and current federal employees.
OPM cited recent disclosures made to the press, including specific instances with the New York Times and the Washington Post, regarding internal government documents and agency communications related to rulemaking and policy development as the reason for the possible NDA requirement.
“Such disclosures risk chilling candid interagency feedback, disrupting orderly decision-making, and weakening trust within and among Federal agencies,” OPM said.
OPM stated that the proposed NDAs would not impose restrictions on federal employees’ speech or disclosure rights. Instead, they would document employees’ agreement with “obligations that already exist under law and regulation.”
The federal government’s largest union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), slammed the proposal as being broad in nature and said it believes the Trump administration will push all federal agencies to employ the NDA and fire those who refuse to sign it.
“This proposed NDA is another attempt by the administration to purge the civil service of nonpartisan career employees and replace them with loyalists who won’t speak out against waste, fraud, and abuse,” Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president, said in a statement. “Federal employees do not surrender their First Amendment rights when they accept federal employment, and the public has a right to know about this administration’s abuses.”
Stopping leaks has been a goal of the Trump administration. For example, the Defense Department banned newsroom access to the Pentagon last year unless journalists signed an agreement acknowledging they would not report any information not approved for public release by the Defense Department.
That ban was recently found unlawful and struck down by a federal judge in March.