Most transparent administration in history wants millions to sign gag order

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

I’m Lauren Harper, the first Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), and welcome to The Classifieds. Read on to learn about this week’s top secrecy news.

The ‘most transparent administration in history’ whiffs again with government-wide NDA

The Trump administration has taken its war on leakers to an unhinged new level by proposing that all federal workers sign a nondisclosure agreement.

As I see it, there are four major problems with the Office of Personnel Management’s announcement and proposed NDA.

The NDA is entirely unnecessary. There are already rules against releasing the kind of information the NDA claims to protect, including confidential and deliberative information. And, as every Freedom of Information Act requester can tell you, agencies already employ them far too liberally. These FOIA exemptions are bolstered by additional Privacy Act protections to prevent the release of personal information, as well as rules around handling classified and controlled unclassified information.

It further erodes whistleblower protections. OPM claims the NDA won’t infringe on the protections outlined by the Whistleblower Protection Act, which shields government employees when disclosing waste, fraud, and abuse. But the NDA’s carve-out will be cold comfort to federal employees who already aren’t covered by the WPA, like those in the intelligence community and contractors. Existing whistleblower protections are further jeopardized by the administration’s firing of 21 inspectors general and the dismantling of the Office of Special Counsel, which protects whistleblowers from retaliation.

It undermines a free press. This NDA is the most recent example of the administration’s effort to intimidate reporters from doing their job and should be read with the following in mind: President Donald Trump has suggested journalists should be jailed to compel them to reveal their sources; soon-to-be-former intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard has referred multiple leaks to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution; and former Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded protections for reporters and approved seizing a journalist’s records.

If federal employees are too scared to talk to the press, and the press is being intimidated from chasing important stories, this leaves the public with one option to learn how the government operates: the Freedom of Information Act.

This brings us to a related problem: Transparency offices are in crisis. FOIA offices are facing closures and what appear to be politically motivated retaliatory firings — on top of decades-long systemic problems.

To see the interplay between all of these issues, we need look no further than a bombshell FOIA release to FPF of a document showing the administration had no solid legal rationale for conducting mass deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

I learned this document existed because of reporting — based on leaks — in both The Washington Post and The New York Times. Bondi used this reporting as an excuse to roll back protections for journalists, which is what prompted me to file a FOIA request for the document. I received it, and the story — which vindicated the leaked-based reporting — made politically damaging headlines. Shortly afterward, several intelligence officials, including two FOIA officers involved in the release, were fired.

This encapsulates the crisis in access to information across the government, and this NDA will only make it worse. You can submit public comments about the agreement through June 26.

Transparently yours,

Lauren Harper

Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation