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Donald Trump administration is proposing that federal workers sign non-disclosure agreements as part of a broader effort to stop leaks to the press, US government personnel officials said. The proposal would extend NDA-style restrictions to civil servants who currently rely on classification rules rather than personal contracts to constrain disclosure.
Personnel officials framed the agreements as a tool aimed specifically at media leaks rather than at whistleblower protections, the BBC reported. The plan is at the proposal stage, with the personnel office canvassing federal agencies on implementation rather than rolling out a finished policy, The Hill reported in its account of the announcement.
Civil-liberties groups and federal-employee unions are expected to challenge any final rule on First Amendment grounds — the same constitutional terrain on which earlier Trump-era NDA fights with former campaign and White House staff repeatedly stalled in federal court. The administration has not specified penalties for refusal to sign or whether existing employees would be required to sign retroactively, per the Hill's report. Specific draft language has not been shared with federal-worker unions.
The proposal lands alongside other internal-control measures rolled out this month, including expanded ICE referrals against immigration attorneys and the administration's push to compel federal contractors away from diversity-equity-inclusion frameworks. NDA enforcement would shift the leak-prevention strategy from prosecution under existing statutes — which require proving classified disclosure — to civil contract enforcement, which carries a lower evidentiary bar than criminal prosecution would impose, and could apply to non-classified internal communications between agency staff and journalists.
Figures referenced: Donald Trump. — JudgeMarket.
