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Last updated on June 1st, 2026 at 11:07 am
The Trump administration has brought a fresh round of discussion on civil liberties and government transparency with a new proposal – that federal workers in the United States sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Lots of criticism has been poured on the Trump NDA policy, from unions to legal and free speech experts. However, before taking a dive into the controversy, it is important to understand what an “NDA” truly is.
A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a legally binding contract that restricts the party that enters the agreement from sharing specific information with third parties. They’ve been common in the private sector, as a way to safeguard trade secrets, IP, or other sensitive business information. In government settings, the traditional use of NDAs is for those employees with access to classified information, research involving sensitive information, or for specific high-stakes projects.
The proposed Trump NDA policy, however, would reach far beyond these traditional definitions — to a wider category of information for a much broader array of federal employees.
A draft agreement has been released by the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for both new and existing Federal workers. According to the Trump NDA policy, what it’s all about is to prevent leaks to the media, and the officials say they’ve seen several cases where “unauthorised releases have jeopardised operations and personnel.”
The most notable example mentioned: the army reports leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post of a planned US raid in Venezuela, which allegedly endangered military lives. In another case, OPM noted, a federal employee sold home addresses, phone numbers and e-mails of some 4,500 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
The OPM has insisted that the agreements do not introduce any “new substantive restrictions on employee speech or disclosure rights” and that the law already protects whistleblowers.
But opposition to the Trump NDA policy has been a swift and sharp one. The move has been denounced by the biggest union of Federal workers, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). AFGE National President Everett Kelley said the administration would force agencies to make the NDA mandatory and let go of anyone who doesn’t sign.
Kelley suggested a current trend in the administration to “silence” career federal workers and hire political cronies, saying that federal employees lose their First Amendment rights when they take on government jobs.
Legal experts also have issued similar warnings. The NDAs are not uncommon, but they are usually linked to classified data or projects, not to all government employees, said Amy Schmitz, a law professor at The Ohio State University, who told the BBC.
Orly Lobel, Director of the Centre for Employment & Labour Policy at the University of San Diego, cautioned that such secrecy pledges by the government could have a “chilling effect” on employees who may be unwilling to report unethical, wasteful or incompetent practices for fear of legal repercussions. She also pointed out that the deals might also restrict the mobility of employees post their government service — meaning they may not be able to get as far as they want in their careers elsewhere.
The Trump NDA policy is the newest of a series of major changes that Trump has made in the federal workforce, which has altered the partisanship between the executive and its career civil servants. Critics regard these NDAs as part of a trend towards securing greater control over government information and diminishing public transparency. Backers say they are vital to national security and to bring about order in sensitive communication.
The public will get 30 days to give feedback on the proposed NDA before it’s finalised and deployed — so the policy may still change a lot before going into effect.
Everybody can agree that the Trump NDA policy is a matter of intense debate, whether it is seen as a reasonable measure for keeping bad guys out of our information systems or as a constitutionally questionable measure aimed at curbing public servants’ ability to talk about the government’s business. The question of confidentiality in government jobs in the United States is far from settled, as legal challenges are likely to be raised and public debate grows.
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