Silencing the whistle

President Donald J. Trump signs Executive Orders in the Oval Office, June 3, 2026. (Official photo from The White House)

By Bruce Botelho

In early June a former executive in the Social Security Administration stepped forward to disclose a since-thwarted Trump administration plan to classify 2.7 million living people — including some U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents — as dead as part of its immigration enforcement efforts.  

According to the official, Jeramiah Schofield, the purpose was explicit: making immigrants so miserable that they self-deported or went to Social Security offices for help, where they could be arrested.

This whistleblower incident joins untold others in which civil servants have come forward to expose dangers ranging from food safety failures to public‑health risks, airline safety issues, and climate misinformation, often preventing harms that would otherwise remain hidden from the public and Congress. It also provides context to moves within the Trump administration to clamp down on just such disclosures.

On May 27, 2026, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued a draft, standardized non-disclosure agreement (NDA) it wants all federal agencies to use for both new and existing employees, ostensibly to “document” existing obligations to protect non‑public information. The form applies across agencies and is explicitly framed as part of a broader crackdown on “unauthorized disclosures” and “leaks” to the media.

Specifically, the proposed rule would require all new and existing federal employees to sign an expansive NDA form as a condition of employment with a federal agency. A violation of the NDA would subject a federal employee to removal and debarment from future federal service, as well as civil and criminal penalties. Under the proposed rule, the NDA would remain in effect for five years after a federal employee leaves federal service, a provision that would suppress factual reporting of the history of this administration’s actions that the public has a right to know.

To be clear, federal law provides protections to people like Schofield who step forward and an NDA cannot override it. Under the Whistleblower Protection Act, federal employees have the right to disclose information concerning violations of law and waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, and the government is prohibited under that statute from retaliating against a federal employee for that type of disclosure. Further, federal employees have the obligation to release documents to the extent they are not exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

However, the NDA proposal fits into a wider campaign by the Trump administration to constrain internal dissent and weaken institutions that normally police misconduct. That campaign has included eroding whistleblower protections, sidelining inspectors general, and using loyalty tests in hiring and discipline. Simply the threat of adverse personnel actions may preclude federal employees from making disclosures that are expressly authorized or required by law. The administration’s steps against private law firms and universities amply illustrate the lengths it will go to chill protected speech.

The comment period for the proposed rule closes on June 26, 2026. That date should matter to anyone who relies on safe food, clean air, functioning airplanes, accurate weather forecasts, or honest elections. Every one of those systems depends on public servants who are willing to say, “Something is wrong,” even when it puts their careers at risk.

Congress should move swiftly to block any NDA regime that conflicts with the Whistleblower Protection Act, and state attorneys general and public‑interest organizations should be prepared to challenge these rules in court. In the meantime, citizens can submit comments opposing the proposal and demand that their representatives protect inspectors general and whistleblowers.

Democracies do not collapse overnight. They erode one safeguard at a time — an inspector general here, a watchdog there, and finally the silencing of those who would sound the alarm. This NDA is not just an obscure personnel rule. It is one more step toward a government where the only acceptable sound from civil servants is quiet obedience, and where the whistle is never heard at all.

• Bruce Botelho is a former Juneau mayor and Alaska attorney general, and president of the Juneau Independent’s board of directors.