Trump administration floats requiring all federal workers to sign NDAs

The Trump administration is proposing a rule requiring federal workers to sign nondisclosure agreements, according to a draft notice the Office of Personnel Management posted Tuesday.

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“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,” says the notice, which was posted to the Federal Register.

It also says it’s needed to combat “unauthorized disclosures” to the media, citing in part reporting last year about OPM’s controversial efforts to make it easier to fire government employees.

“Such disclosures risk chilling candid interagency feedback, disrupting orderly decision-making, and weakening trust within and among Federal agencies,” the notice says.

Violations of the NDA by current and former employees could result in civil and criminal penalties, the notice says.

Reuters and the Washington Post were first to report on the proposed requirement.

The notice says that NDAs would not impact employees from making legally allowed “disclosures to Congress, an Inspector General, or other designated individuals that are protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act.”

The administration has been accused of ignoring those protections previously, including when it placed 15 workers on indefinite leave from the Federal Emergency Management Agency who had warned about the impact mass layoffs were having at the agency. They were later reinstated.

Mark Zaid, the Washington, D.C. based attorney who co-founded the advocacy group Whistleblower Aid, told NBC News in an email that the language in the proposed NDA “would not create any new legal obligations for federal employees, nor limit any ability to lawfully whistleblow, which can include providing certain information to the media” — but he thinks that’s the likely goal.

“It would appear this new effort serves only the purpose of trying to induce fear and intimidate the workforce so as to stop unauthorized but lawful disclosures of information that has often resulted in negative publicity for the Administration,” Zaid said.

The rule will be officially published on Wednesday, setting off a 30-day public comment period. The notice says individual “agencies would have discretion whether to use the NDA.”

“Should agencies elect to use the NDA, it would be administered to newly hired employees as part of the onboarding process and to current Federal employees,” the notice says.

Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the union would oppose the move, which he called a continuation of OPM’s “efforts to silence federal employees.”

“OPM claims the form will be ‘optional’ for agencies to use and merely restates existing law. We know that will not be true. OPM will pressure agencies to make the NDA mandatory and then fire employees who refuse to sign it,” he 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,” he said.

OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement that in the private sector, “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.”

“Americans should be able to trust that their personal data and sensitive government information are being handled responsibly. This proposal reinforces accountability across the federal workforce while helping agencies better protect against unauthorized disclosures,” he added.