In the 1980s, the Reagan administration required federal workers seeking or retaining security clearances to sign nondisclosure forms SF 189 and SF 312. The proposed language barred disclosure of information deemed “classifiable”—a term Steve Garfinkel, then director of the Information Security Oversight Office, told Congress could cover anything that “could or should have been classified.” About 1.7 million employees and contractors signed, while the broader clearance-holder population was estimated at 2.4 million. Violations could have led to loss of clearance and felony prosecution, creating what critics described as a back-door Official Secrets Act.
Pentagon whistleblower Ernie Fitzgerald refused to sign, helping prompt congressional hearings in which Senator Charles Grassley accused the administration of placing “a blanket of silence” over government information. Congress blocked spending on SF 189 in 1988; after the administration substituted language referring to “unmarked but classified” information, lawmakers rewrote the restriction in 1989. The resulting annual appropriations rider requires every covered nondisclosure policy to state that the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and the Lloyd–La Follette Act of 1912 override restrictive language. The Supreme Court did not resolve the administration’s constitutional challenge, and the provision has been renewed annually since 1988, although the source notes that affected employees generally lack a direct legal remedy. Critics later argued that categories such as “Sensitive But Unclassified” were used to recreate similar secrecy barriers, including in disputes over NASA climate scientist James Hansen and allegations involving FDA knowledge of dangerous drugs such as Vioxx.
