The Washington Post reports that:
"Leaders of two government unions called on Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to stop requiring all 180,000 department workers to sign nondisclosure agreements that prohibit them from sharing sensitive but unclassified information with the public."
The nondisclosure agreements restrict:
"disclosure of several new types of government information beyond classified data, the category "law enforcement sensitive."
The form defines as "sensitive" any information that could "adversely affect the national interest or the conduct of federal programs," a much lower barrier than damaging national security. The definition also includes information that would violate a person’s privacy."
Unions Protest DHS Secrecy Pledge – Ridge Urged to Rescind Directive on Nondisclosure Agreements (Spencer S. Hsu)
My colleague Leonard Bierman (Texas A&M Univ.) and I have recently written on the related topics of pay secrecy rules ( Pay Secrecy/Confidentiality Rules and the National Labor Relations Act, 6 Univ. of Pennsylvania J. of Labor & Employment Law 121, 2003) and employee information exchanges (The Law and Economics of Employee Information Exchange in the Knowledge Economy, 12 George Mason L. Rev. 651, 2004)