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The Trump administration is planning a government-wide nondisclosure agreement that would bar federal workers from sharing a wide array of “confidential government information,” according to a draft notice posted to the Federal Register on Tuesday by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
The draft notice, which will be published Wednesday and stay open for a 30-day public comment period, uses an expansive definition of privileged information, beyond typical classified and unclassified designations. Under the terms of the draft, employees would be blocked 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.”
Agencies can decide whether to adopt the NDA, according to the draft.
In the draft notice, OPM cited a number of high-profile leaks, including “unauthorized disclosures” that it said were made to the New York Times and The Washington Post about the U.S. raid in Venezuela in January that led to the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. The notice said the leaks “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.’”
New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn previously disputed that the publication had sensitive information about the mission that required it to delay its story. “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 said in a January explainer on the Times’s website.
Spokespeople for the Times and The Post declined to comment.
“In much of 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,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-administration-proposes-ndas-for-all-federal-workers-145408407.html
The draft notice, which will be published Wednesday and stay open for a 30-day public comment period, uses an expansive definition of privileged information, beyond typical classified and unclassified designations. Under the terms of the draft, employees would be blocked 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.”
Agencies can decide whether to adopt the NDA, according to the draft.
In the draft notice, OPM cited a number of high-profile leaks, including “unauthorized disclosures” that it said were made to the New York Times and The Washington Post about the U.S. raid in Venezuela in January that led to the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. The notice said the leaks “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.’”
New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn previously disputed that the publication had sensitive information about the mission that required it to delay its story. “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 said in a January explainer on the Times’s website.
Spokespeople for the Times and The Post declined to comment.
“In much of 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,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-administration-proposes-ndas-for-all-federal-workers-145408407.html
