In an abrupt reversal, the Department of Homeland Security last week rescinded its controversial policy of requiring employees to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to gain access to unclassified information that is marked "for official use only" or "sensitive but unclassified."
The non-disclosure agreements, first reported by Secrecy News last November 8, drew opposition from employees' unions and others because, for example, they granted the government extraordinary permission to "conduct inspections at any time or place for the purpose of ensuring compliance.
"The revised DHS policy on sensitive but unclassified information eliminates the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) requirement. Such agreements are only rarely used by other agencies for unclassified information.
The change was reported yesterday by Eileen Sullivan in Federal Time (www.federaltimes.com). "Those NDA's previously signed by DHS employees... will no longer be valid," according to a January 11 transmittal memo from DHS Under Secretary Janet Hale. "DHS will take reasonable steps to retrieve these documents and destroy them."
A copy of "Safeguarding Sensitive But Unclassified (For Official Use Only) Information," DHS Management Directive 11042.1, revised January6, 2005, is posted here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dhs-sbu-rev.pdf
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