[1] Since 1988, the statute has been an annual appropriations restriction drawing the line on Executive branch efforts to limit whistleblowing disclosures to information that is specifically identified in advance as classified.
[clarification needed] The anti-gag statute requires a mandatory, specifically worded addendum on any nondisclosure policy, form or agreement to legally spend money to implement or enforce the gag order.
At one of numerous congressional hearings on the matter, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) characterized the administration's non-disclosure policy as an effort to “place a blanket of silence over all information generated by the government.”3 As a counter-attack, in 1988, Congress banned spending on SF 189.
The Administration withdrew the form and substituted a new one, but the only change was to replace “classifiable” with “unmarked but classified.” Critics rejected the impact as disingenuous and meaningless, because whistleblowers still would have to seek advance approval from their supervisors to know for certain whether making a disclosure would be a crime.
The final anti-gag statute circumvents the Administration's constitutional challenge by requiring the President to obey the relevant good government and national security laws he already signed.
Although the law's roots involve a national security controversy, its language sets the terms for lawful-spending to enforce any Executive branch restriction on free speech rights.
In fact, their threat is greater than the original Reagan-era nondisclosure policy, because these restrictions impose an Official Secrets Act on every federal employee or contractor, not just those with security clearances.
To illustrate, NASA recently issued a new media policy to quell the controversy around an unsuccessful attempt to gag its top climate change scientist, James Hansen.
Like the Lloyd–Lafollete Act protecting communications with Congress, the anti-gag statute has been an effective weapon for lawyers to discredit, negotiate and generally call repressive government bluffs.