The Office of Personnel Management is proposing something new: a single, governmentwide nondisclosure agreement that federal agencies could require employees to sign — at hiring, during onboarding, or at any point in your career. Under the draft, refusing to sign could mean removal from federal service. The form would live permanently in your eOPF.
We read the draft. It has a problem that goes to its legal foundation: it omits words that Congress requires, word for word, in every federal nondisclosure agreement.
So on June 9, 2026, Southworth PC filed a formal public comment asking OPM to withdraw the draft, fix it, and start the comment process over. The complete filed comment is below.
Click Here to Download Southworth PC’s CommentWhat the Law Requires
After agencies were caught using gag agreements to silence whistleblowers, Congress did something unusual. Instead of telling agencies to draft their own disclaimers, Congress wrote the exact language itself. Under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(13)(A), every federal nondisclosure policy, form, or agreement must contain a specific statement — verbatim — telling you that the agreement does not override your rights relating to classified information, communications to Congress, whistleblower protections, and reports of wrongdoing.
In 2021, Congress amended that mandatory statement to add something important: your right to report violations of law, gross waste, abuse of authority, or dangers to public health and safety to the Office of Special Counsel. OSC is the independent federal agency where whistleblowers actually file disclosures and where prohibited personnel practice complaints go. Congress wanted every employee who signs an NDA to see that, in the document itself, before signing.
And the statute has teeth. Implementing or enforcing an NDA without the required statement is itself a prohibited personnel practice — the same category of unlawful conduct as whistleblower retaliation.
What OPM’s Draft Says Instead
Paragraph 3 of the draft NDA reproduces the required statement — but it reproduces the old version, the one Congress replaced in 2021. Here is the comparison:
What the law requires: “…the reporting to an Inspector General or the Office of Special Counsel of a violation of any law, rule, or regulation…”
What the draft says: “…the reporting to an Inspector General of a violation of any law, rule, or regulation…”
The Office of Special Counsel — the whistleblower agency — is gone. The same omission appears in OPM’s Federal Register notice describing the proposal. The draft appears to have been built from a pre-2021 template rather than from the current United States Code.
Why This Matters to You
This is not a technicality. If this form is finalized as drafted, every agency that administers it would be implementing a nondisclosure form that fails the one statute written specifically to govern its contents. Every federal employee asked to sign it would be reading a legally inaccurate description of their whistleblower rights — one that omits the principal forum Congress created to protect them. And because the draft warns that refusing to sign may result in removal, employees could face career-ending consequences over a form that, as written, no agency could lawfully implement or enforce at all.
Our comment makes the full legal argument: the statute does not permit “close enough” compliance; the omitted words reflect a deliberate Act of Congress; general references to the Whistleblower Protection Act elsewhere in the form cannot cure the defect; and the only adequate fix is for OPM to withdraw the draft, correct it, and republish it for a fresh round of public comment so federal employees can evaluate the form the law actually permits.
What You Can Do
OPM is accepting public comments through June 26, 2026. You do not need a lawyer to file one. Go to regulations.gov, search Docket ID OPM-2026-0100, and submit your comment — about this defect, about the consequences of refusing to sign, or about any of the ten questions OPM asked the public. Agencies are required to consider every comment they receive. Notice-and-comment is one of the few formal channels where individual federal employees can speak directly to the policies that govern their careers, and it works best when employees actually use it.
If You’re Asked to Sign a Nondisclosure Form
Whether or not this draft becomes final, the rule it violates already protects you today: any federal nondisclosure policy, form, or agreement you are asked to sign must contain the statement Congress prescribed. If you have been asked to sign an NDA that doesn’t, if you have faced discipline connected to a nondisclosure form, or if you believe you have experienced retaliation for protected whistleblowing, those are situations worth taking seriously and getting advice on early.
Southworth PC represents federal employees nationwide before the MSPB, EEOC, the Office of Special Counsel, and related forums. This post is general legal information, not legal advice for your specific situation.