The American people deserve a transparent government
FROM THE LEFT
Any non-disclosure agreements should be made public when their legality and constitutionality are being determined so the public and potential future public servants, given the revolving door on Pennsylvania Avenue, can understand what is being covered and asked.
I don’t believe any confidentiality issues should be violated by revealing the agreements themselves. They are likely based on a single draft with areas to be customized based on position, and as such should be no more privileged information than a job application form, even if it is decided that the actual material the NDA covers is protected. The NDA should be time-limited on matters not pertaining to national security or which have already been publicized through other channels.
Everything done by thegovernment should be transparent, available and open to the electorate.
Nondisclosure agreements of this nature in government indicate a willingness to acknowledge there is behavior going on unbecoming of the office of POTUS and of the U.S. This has never been a problem for the 44 other predecessors.
Not making NDAs public is unconstitutional. First and foremost, it violates freedom of speech and can also be considered a violation of freedom of the press. Secondly, this is a direct move to diminish transparency to the people. Any president, not just President Donald Trump, needs to remember that they work for and are elected by the people.
This is supposed to be a democracy. Those who work for and can honestly inform the public should not be silenced or threatened. The president has already fired many government officials for matters both known and unknown and now he is forcing others to sign NDAs. What is he trying to hide? Not acceptable.
This needs to be investigated immediately. Our elected representatives must act on this. No one holding public office should demand or sign a non-disclosure agreement. This is against our rule of law and does more harm than good. There are already laws in place to handle the leaking of government secrets that could cause harm to the United States and its citizens.
Anything that a public servant does that is illegal should not be hidden under a non-disclosure law. No one should be above the law, especially not the president. What exactly is his concern that he feels he needs to go the extra mile to ensure that it is kept a secret? Again, there are already laws in place to punish those that leak secret information.
If the president is worried about someone writing a tell-all book about his behavior perhaps he should act in such a way that he won’t be embarrassed by such accounts.
What exactly is he doing that he’s so worried about people knowing? With all the incidents that have happened since he’s taken office, I honestly can’t imagine what he would deem embarrassing that hasn’t already been aired.
Contrary to popular belief, we do not live in an autocracy, nor does an autocrat run our government. This president should be admonished, the agreements shredded and Congress needs to put an end to this.
This president needs to learn what a democracy means. The White House is the people’s house.
Those that work there do so for the public as does the president, and he answers to all the people, not just a select group of constituents.
Any non-disclosure contract signed by a government employee or elected official is not worth the paper it is written on. They work for the people and not one man. His handlers need to figure out how to control him before he fires them in a tweet and he takes this whole country down with him.

Alan Harris