Public officials should not be able to sign NDAs with private businesses.
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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We are all disenfranchised on this great day.
several governors already okayed the project in thier states
PSA most NDAs are unenforceable BS. Same with non-competes. You can't prevent a person from making a living. The only thing NDAs can really cover are true trade secrets that could cause actual damages to the company. Otherwise in the US a company can't make you sign your right to free speech away.
The only thing NDAs can really cover are true trade secrets that could cause actual damages to the company.
Isn't it very easy for companies to argue any confidential information/agreement would damage them?
It has to be a specific trade secret AND cause actual damages.
If you leaked the secret recipe to coca cola and now competitors don't just make cokealikes, but literal coke for half the price, you get nuked from orbit.
If I help a company develop machine learning I can talk about my implementation, the problems I solved, how I did it, what design decisions I made .etc because all of that is reasonable to an experienced software engineer. If I had some novel idea nobody else had that company would have patented it, or specifically named it as a trade secret and not just "it's all a trade secret plz don't talk or we SLAPP you with a dumb lawsuit"
They're up against the constitution's 1st amendment in the US. In my home country of Canada we have the same or stronger protections for workers. My second example literally happened to me. I was on a ML project and signed an NDA and the only thing that NDA and a non-compete and all that really covers is me giving info to competitors while I worked there basically... Once I no longer work for them it's an uphill battle to even prove the basis of a lawsuit to go after me for the NDA or NC.
If you can't afford the time or money to defend yourself from a SLAPP lawsuit, the legality doesn't matter much anymore. It is unfortunately in most peoples best financial interests to not personally test the legality of unenforceable BS.
It should not be legal for elected officials to sign NDAs with corporations.
That was my reaction before I even read the text at the bottom of the post.
It should not be legal for elected officials to sign NDAs ~~with corporations~~.
Part of the price for being given the power of office should be the loss of privacy. If you are an official, you are no longer a private citizen. You are a representative and should not be doing anything you want to keep secret from your constituency.
Except for personal stuff. But any action that will impact anyone outside of their family should be public.
I generally agree with that, but sometimes government officials have to perform official duties that require confidentiality.
If they're intervening on behalf of a constituent and it involves medical or otherwise personal information, then they should be required to maintain confidentiality. Whether that requires an NDA or something else is a different question.
but sometimes government officials have to perform official duties that require confidentiality.
If by "sometimes" you mean "they'll make you sign a NDA to tell you 8 hours before everyone else it's Taco Tuesday"...
Yeah, that's pretty close
NDAs aren't rare at all, and I wish it was surprising no one on Lemmy seems to have actual governmental experience.
NDAs aren't rare at all, and I wish it was surprising no one on Lemmy seems to have actual governmental experience.
Hey jackass, I had to sign an NDA when I left my government job because I held a security clearance. I know more about it than you do.
Trite quips about taco tuesday aside, government jobs require confidentiality about some things, and transparency about others. There's no contradiction there, but ideally it should be unambiguous where the boundary is. Those things should be clearly defined.
A good start, albeit still overly simplistic, would be to say confidentiality concerning information belonging to their constituents, and transparency concerning information belonging to corporations and their donors. Unfortunately that still leaves a lot of vaguery and wiggle-room.
But I'm no policy-maker, so even if I were to write a twenty-page document defining everything in minute detail, it still wouldn't matter.
No NDA necessary. That'd be under other laws/systems. Some would be under things like HIPAA in the US if they learned the information in the course of their work. At minimum, it would fall under civil liability if they publicised private information of private individuals and those people claimed that it caused them harm in some way.
At this point I think you may not even understand what a NDA is.
Are you under the impression if someone doesn't want to talk about a topic, they just "sign a NDA" and don't have to talk about it?
I think non-disclosure agreements and the existence of billionaires are mutually dependent.
I have worked with small businesses worth peanuts that use NDAs for meetings with third parties, they are a very common and easy to use tool
And so, under the guise of protecting trade secrets, companies conveniently shield themselves from the disclosure of all kinds of misconduct.
There are whistleblower protections for reporting such things, even if under NDA
Yes, in theory. However, under the U.S. legal system, very few people will risk being sued for an alleged breach of an NDA, since it involves a civil lawsuit that can result in astronomical legal costs—potentially even if you were to win the case.
So, in most cases, the mere threat of financial ruin—which can very easily result from the exorbitant legal fees—is enough.
Which is an entirely different issue that has nothing to do with NDAs in general. NDAs in the US are pretty much useless either way, since corps will sue you to hell and back if you say anything they consider a "secret", no matter how arbitrary it is or what documents you signed.
Michigan Constitution Art. 4 § 11 protects state legislators from liability for speech in the legislature. A similar clause that applies to local councillors would prevent these sorts of contracts because they wouldn't be binding; the councillors could openly violate the non-disclosure agreement during the council sessions and would be immune from liability for breaching the agreement. That being said, being legally allowed to speak won't persuade a person who doesn't want to speak from staying silent. If the company in question offered a huge bribe to not talk, that's not something that can be solved by the legislature. That's a problem for the prosecutor's office.
So they're less worried about civil liability and more concerned about being sued for "breach of contract" and possibly having to return the bribe?
Contract law is a branch of the civil law and breach of contract gives rise to civil liability.
Let's talk about legal bribes vs illegal bribes.
A "legal bribe" would be something like offering some crazy incentive to a councillor that is tied to the project being approved, like saying "We're thinking about donating $100,000 to your re-election campaign" or "Your son should apply for our data analyst position with an annual salary of $100,000". There is no explicit agreement, just a wink and a nod. But the person being bribed knows that the receipt of the reward is contingent on their acting according to the bribe offerer's wishes. This form of bribery is legal in the United States and actually constitutionally protected according to the infamously fucked-up Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. If the councillor doesn't do what the data centre company wants, they'll simply not receive the donation or their son won't get the job.
An "illegal bribe" is just a classic bribe: an agreement that we will pay you X dollars cash if you do Y. That's illegal in the US and carries strict penalties. But since it's illegal, if the money has already been paid and the bribe recipient doesn't do what was agreed, or the bribe offerer doesn't pay after the bribe recipient does what they're told, there is absolutely no recourse to the legal system because courts will not enforce contracts for illegal activities.
The NDA is probably a legal bribe. The company invites the councillor to discuss the data centre project at the fanciest restaurant in town, makes them sign an NDA that "all details of the meeting will remain confidential", then discusses the possibility of the campaign donation or nepo job offer at the meeting. Then the company pays for the meal on the company card. All of that is technically legal, but of course, it's horribly corrupt so if the locals caught wind of it, they'd run the councillor out of town. Entire municipal councils have been recalled from office before as a result of unpopular data centre projects.
How insightful. Glad you shared these comments.
Breach of contract is a civil action.
Who would arrest them? The whole system is corrupt
An ignorant and unengaged electorate is just asking for it. When you're rich they let you do it, you can do anything.
I remind my friends all the time to pay attention. I plead with them to vote, but they just don't care. They think everyone is corrupt and nothing matters. I'm the only one in my friends group that gives a damn. Honestly, I think this country is cooked. I don't see any way other than pain to cure this apathy.
That's tragic. I'm appealing to people who believe far-right conspiracies (without realising the source is far-right) to be careful of what they consume, but they're voting.
A ton are corrupt sure but of course it doesn't matter if people choose to do nothing.
People take their innate power and just throw it in the trash. It's disappointing.
Grab em by the ~~pussy~~ complete and utter lack of morality.
What a shithole country
Peak corruption
This is when a group of like minded, engaged citizens should band together with their own NDA. That way if the towns elected officials suddenly went missing, they wouldn't be at liberty to discuss it. Although they would all have each other as an alibi, so it would help ensure police don't waste a lot of time looking into obviously innocent people.
I work in a government capacity in my country and I have a NDA in law form.
I can ask an applicant anything relevant to their application. Trade secret and all, and they MUST supply the answer. But I am obliged by law not to divulge anything that that could be sensitive for the company if it were to be know to the competition.
Anyone can make a complaint about my apartments handling and it would be investigated by one level up in the chain, but no one can let any trade secrets slip
This isn't about trade secrets, this is about elected officials doing backroom deals with corporations that actively harm their constituents, and taking active measures to reduce transparency.
Because none of you Americans have put up a fight. Y'all just rolled over and let Fascism win.
I mean… my people and many other tribes put up a fight and were basically wiped out. That’s before you even start talking about Rainbow Farm, or MOVE, or the general public’s response to things like the Black Panthers. But sure… we just rolled over… yeah…
People posting critical comments about a place that they know nothing about is something I see all too often here on Lemmy.
Cowards love to break down others. They don't know shit about what it is like to live in this fucked up country.
It's so easy to claim Americans are doing nothing - many people seem to truly believe this. They are brainwashed by American media, and they are unwittingly working for the very people that oppress us when they open their mouths to criticize a people they may never understand.
Blaming the electorate instead of the system is definitely a choice. These kinds of systemic issues go all the way back to the founding of the country (capitalism as the chosen economic model, first part the post voting, the electoral college and the Senate giving land more voting rights than people, representative democracy instead of direct democracy leading to massive amounts of corruption) and every attempt to solve those issues have been thwarted using very dirty tactics by the elite.
So what specifically are you advocating for?
The US has been designed to quell dissent as much as possible by making dissent endanger most people's lives, as most are 1 or 2 missed paychecks from homelessness and losing their health insurance. It makes them less willing to risk forming a union, less willing to take a risk in forming a cooperative, less able to have the free time or energy to protest, and the country is too big for them to easily gather at their capital in protest.
In the EU, workers get 30 days of consecutive time off, workers can't be arbitrarily laid off, free or cheap health care in most cases, housing and food assistance to unemployed in many countries, etc. So it's generally easier to fight back there.
Saying all that, the US absolutely need to take steps to overcome all that regardless, just as the EU had to do to get all those protections in the first place. If the US does nothing, it's likely they will become like Russia is today, with a population that is mostly too scared, apathetic, or brainwashed to fight back against their regime.
I'll add in a second comment some steps they can take to meaningfully fight back.
For people from the US reading this, here's the steps we'll have to take to avoid falling into a hellish fascist dictatorship:
Part 1: The big picture
The protests are good ways of meeting like-minded people in your community to form connections, as well as spreading awareness of local mutual aid groups so more can join or form ICE resistance groups who can join an encrypted chat to coordinate, alert neighbors, and talk strategy. It also is a good place for unions or union members to encourage others to unionize their workplaces, which can also ultimately work toward a national general strike, which is our most tangible and powerful collective action.
The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor, allowing us to directly demand real changes (such as ending the war in Iran, ceasing support for the genocide of Palestine, and Abolishing ICE).
The General Strike was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would've had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.
There are some concrete steps all of us can take toward enacting that hard-core general strike to make it more viable and bearable for us all. (the titles below expand if you click them).
Part 2: Learn First Aid
Violence is being used against those who resist and it will only continue. It extremely important to have the skills to be able to keep yourself and others alive if they get hurt.
Tacticool Girlfriend provides a great introduction to building a personal first aid kit, called an IFAK, which can deal with things like bullet wounds and other serious bleeding wounds. I also want to emphasize her recommendation of only buying medical gear from reputable sources (not Amazon!), such as North American Rescue to avoid fakes that could cost you your life.
But you'll need to learn how to use that equipment, too. The best resource for that is to take a local Stop The Bleed class, which are pretty widely available in most places. They may cost a small fee, but can also sometimes be free. Alternatively, if you cannot access a local class, this video by PrepMedic will give you a solid understanding of how to use Tourniquets and Gauze for wound packing.
Injuries are less harmful if they are tended to early. Learning first aid can help conserve resources when healthcare becomes unaffordable. Having several medics in case of harm by police is an extremely powerful morale booster during a protest that may become a police riot. When you become comfortable with the basics of first aid, riot medicine is the next suggested step.
Part 3: Establish or join local Mutual Aid networks
If you haven't already, get to know your neighbors. Mutual aid is a willingness to support and grow your community. This can include informal networks through friends, tenant/renter organizations, solidarity groups, and industrial unions.
These are groups using direct action to solve each other's problems. Building strong communities makes it difficult for fascism to take root. The actions of the government are going to hit every community hard, and the ones who build trust in each other and work together are most likely to survive. We've been building a list of resources in !inperson@slrpnk.net to help you on your way. Also check out this handy guide to find existing groups in your area.
This isn't only for your own community protection. Your ability to organize today will change the political landscape tomorrow. When revolution occurs, the social organizations that show the greatest resilience through the regime are the ones typically calling the shots when the dust settles. When it comes to elections, get out the vote drives are useless if most of the voters are fascists. At some point, you have to do grassroots political education if you don't want fascist candidates winning elections. Mutual aid networks are excellent forums not only for teaching each other good political ideas, but demonstrating them in practice.
There's also some projects you can do that help build community (and can be fun in themselves!), for more info, go here, and scroll down to the "Fun Projects to Build Community) section"
Part 4: Join a Union to help prepare for a General Strike
If you aren't in a union (or even if you are, it's worth dual-carding), consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you'll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to make a general strike possible.
Once you are in a union you and your coworkers will need to pressure your leadership to prepare for a general strike, as well as pressure them to organize with other unions to enact a general strike. This is especially true if you are in a more traditional union that isn't the IWW. Your local shop may need to organize directly with other unions if your union leaders are too cowardly to do so.
Most unions have a strike fund that can supplement your income during a general strike to make it more financially bearable (you should also save as much money as you can reasonably do, so it can also be used to keep yourself afloat during a strike). A General Strike is officially planned by the UAW for May 1st 2028, but it was planned before Trump was elected, and by then will be too late, so prepare now for one that may start sooner.
You can contact the IWW with the link below:
And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn't listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above, and they'll help you set up a new local branch.
- 🇦🇷 Argentina: FORA
- 🇦🇺 Australia: ASF-IWA
- 🇧🇷 Brazil: FOB
- 🇧🇬 Bulgaria: ARS, CITUB
- 🇩🇪 Germany: FAU
- 🇬🇷 Greece: ESE
- 🇮🇹 Italy: USI
- 🇮🇪 Ireland: IWW Ireland
- 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 Netherlands & Belgium: Vriji Bond
- 🇪🇸 Spain: CNT
- 🇸🇪 Sweden: SAC
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: UVW
Part 5: Adopt Security Culture and Digital Camouflage
Sometimes benign seeming efforts can turn into unexpected personal data collecting traps. Like an obscure website for exchanging contact info with other students turning into a global ad-tech surveillance network (Facebook), or innocent seeming online personality tests being use to harvest character profiles. Even Etsy, Reddit, Tinder, and Duolingo are feeding information to US Government Agencies like ICE.
Security culture is commonly used to describe the general awareness of such potential traps and how it can affect groups or entire communities. This goes beyond mere individual privacy efforts, as without joint efforts these often fail to work.
Especially in activist circles, security culture is paramount. For opsec reasons not everyone in the group might be aware of what clandestine efforts others are involved in, but with a general security culture many potential data leaks can be avoided.
Movements are made by the volume of their participants, and the easier and less dangerous it is to participate, the more people will get involved. As more people get involved, individual involvement becomes even less dangerous, creating a virtuous cycle.
We'll start it off with some General Advice:
- Mentally wall off personal uniquely identifying info from your online presence, actively build a habit of opsec so that withholding information is your default mental state
- Be careful about who you meet online
- Use different, unrelated usernames, passwords & emails for every account. And try not to connect to those accounts with your real IP address (use Tor or a VPN)
- Be mindful that anything done online leaves a trail
- agents provocateurs may seek to find patsies willing to perform an ill-advised illegal activity in order to legitimize police repression. If someone is trying to pressure you, especially if you don't have a long and proven history with them, be extremely wary.
For a full guide on what encrypted communications platforms to use, and how to stay off the radar, read the Digital Camouflage section within the Monthly Meta post here (you'll need to scroll down. I'd add it here, but it won't fit in this comment).
I'd also highly recommend Full Spectrum Resistance to anyone who wants further info on how to resist (audiobook version here).
That's not true, they fought 200 schoolgirls in Iran and wiped them out.
You coward. Go tell Renee's family that in person if you're so certain of it. Go knock on doors in Minneapolis and tell them they are doing nothing. Go visit Alex Pretti's grave and drop a soap box. I want to see the videos that follow that shit right there.
I hate Trump, and I hate what's going on, but I hate people like you far more. You're doing Trump's work for him, and you're trying to unfairly break down my people for internet points. Fuck that.
Honestly makes me laugh any time someone says something like that nowadays. Remember back in 2016 and 2018 when there were non-stop riots and police cars on fire and shit? That stuff still happens, they just figured out how to wipe it from the internet.