Government information gathering and sharing are in peril 

In 1822, President James Madison responded to a letter from W.T. Barry of Kentucky on the importance of public education: “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both,” Madison wrote. “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Those cautionary words ring as true today as they did then. Under our system, the struggle over how much information should be made public is persistent and fierce.

The Trump administration is reportedly proposing non-disclosure agreements for all federal workers, barring them from sharing a wide array of “confidential government information.”  

The proposed rule, published in the Federal Register last Wednesday by the Office of Personnel and Management and subject to a 30-day comment period, uses an expansive definition of what “privileged information” may not be shared outside an agency. It includes not only classified and unclassified internal designations, but extends to “any sensitive pre-decisional deliberative material that is not publicly available and would not be disclosed under applicable law.”

Exceptions are carved out for those government employees who report cases of waste, fraud and abuse under the Whistleblowers Protection Act, and, presumably, for those who are subpoenaed by Congress or the courts to provide testimony on what they have witnessed.

There is still a significant chasm between what is classified and........

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