In May, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released a draft of a non-disclosure agreement to be distributed among agencies, which would gain authority to require all present and future federal agents to sign.
The OPM created the proposal to regulate unauthorized exposure of sensitive government information in response to “leaks related to planned immigration enforcement operations” and the personal information of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The OPM discussed the harm that can come from the release of pre-decisional material, pointing to when the Supreme Court’s draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson was released, unauthorized to the media. Following the incident, an assassination plot, curated for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was planned and attempted due to the released draft.
The OPM highlighted that the document is meant to protect proprietary information.
“If finalized, it would become an official government form that agencies could use as a standard part of the employee onboarding process,” the announcement states. “... employees would continue to retain all rights and protections afforded by statute related to lawful disclosures of waste, fraud, abuse or misconduct.”
The OPM encouraged public comment regarding the comprehensiveness and clarity of the NDA’s regulations; any person could respond to the form up until June 27.
Democratic members of the Ohio Legislature, including Rep. Greg Landsman, Rep. Shontel Brown and Rep. Emilia Sykes, joined 45 colleagues on a response to the proposal.
“The proposed rule is nothing more than another attempt to intimidate, silence, politicize and demolish the federal workforce, and hide this Administration’s waste, fraud, abuse and corruption from the American people,” the letter stated.
On June 9, The Society of Professional Journalists, a national organization dedicated to the practice of journalism and press freedom, posted its response to the proposed NDA.
The SPJ, joined by 23 other organizations, released a press release that stated the proposal would promote conflicts with the First Amendment.
“The proposed agreement bars employees from sharing non-public, confidential or proprietary information during their employment and indefinitely after leaving government service,” the press release stated. “In practice, imposing this requirement would effectively cut off the federal workforce from speaking to the press about their jobs.”
According to the Associated Press, there are already confidential information regulations implemented on federal employees. Additionally, Congress prohibits employers from enforcing an NDA, contradicting the OPM’s proposal.
The AP highlighted other conflicts between the media and the current administration, including last year when reporters chose to turn in their Pentagon access badges in defiance of a rule that required U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s approval for anything published.
Patricia Gallagher Newberry, SPJ board member and enterprise reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, reports on immigration, politics and government coverage.
According to Newberry, contacting governmental bodies such as the Department of Homeland Security has become much more difficult under President Donald Trump.
She said the DHS official website has become anonymized, meaning all contact information is attributed to the agency rather than an official. The lack of communication from the government has led Newberry to write from the immigrant and worker perspective.
The Trump administration has been destructive to the press, according to Newberry, and has “branded the press as the enemy of the people."
“The level of actual real information that the Trump administration has been willing to share with reporters, out here in the flyover country, has been minimal, and that's being generous,” Newberry said.
The government wants to control the information reaching the public, according to Newberry. She said they use the fear of job loss to keep individuals silent.
By favoring media outlets that support Trump’s agenda and refusing to speak with other organizations, “all the controversy has been flushed out; it’s been packaged for media consumption,” Newberry said.
“You end up with all these government workers, no matter their level, being muzzled, being unable to offer real information about real issues, even though we, the American public, employ these people right with our tax dollars; they can't talk to us,” Newberry said.
