The topic To stop leaks, the Trump administration wants federal workers to sign NDAs is drawing steady attention: readers, analysts, and industry watchers are all tracking how the story may unfold in the days ahead.
This is taking place in a fast-moving context — product cycles, platform shifts, and competitive moves can reshape the outlook quickly, so the details below are worth a careful read.
What follows is a clear walkthrough of the main facts and angles you need to make sense of the news.
The Office of Personnel Management headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Michael A. McCoy/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
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Recent leaks about immigration enforcement actions and the secretive U.S. raid on Venezuela underscore the need for NDAs, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) writes in a proposed rule scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
The roughly 2 million people who work for the federal government are already required to safeguard confidential and proprietary information obtained on the job.
But some people familiar with the inner workings of the federal government dispute that characterization.
“This seems to be a new add-on that seems to be very, very broad in nature,” says Ray Limon, who served as an attorney and human resources leader in the federal government for nearly three decades. “I’m just adding this to another tranche of measures that they’re taking to step on the throat of the employee.”
OPM did not immediately respond to NPR’s questions about the proposed rule.
NDAs are widespread in the private sector and already used selectively throughout the government, including in areas involving national security.
But the vast majority of civil servants — who handle the unclassified, routine work of the government — do not sign NDAs, Limon says, although they are bound by numerous restrictions on how they handle agency information.
according to the data the draft rule, agencies could decide for themselves whether to use the new agreements. Still, a government-wide push for NDAs would be unprecedented.
“It would be a big deal, absolutely,” says Limon. “It’s been very, very limited in how they’ve been used.”
according to the data the draft rule, the NDA would cover information “relating to internal agency operations, personnel matters, procurement processes, or any sensitive, pre-decisional or deliberative material that is not currently publicly available and should not be disclosed under applicable law.”
“I just think it’s going to create a lot more confusion than necessary,” he says.
The administration has invited the public to weigh in on a number of questions related to the draft rule, including what actions the government should take against employees — new or existing — who refuse to sign an NDA.
In a separate draft rule proposed last year, OPM suggested failure to sign an NDA could result in termination or debarment from future employment with the federal government.