How valuable will the president’s steps be if, in the future, government agencies can simply dismiss insubordinate workers by declaring them unsuitable for an amorphous pool of “sensitive” jobs without having their decisions independently reviewed?

It’s not just whistle-blowers who would be affected. To understand the potential scope of the Jan. 25 memo, consider the case of Berry v. Conyers, involving two low-level Defense Department employees — one an accounting technician, the other a commissary stocker — who were suspended and demoted after their jobs were declared “noncritical sensitive.” The Jan. 25 memo was issued one day after a federal appeals court announced that it would review an earlier decision that went against the employees.

Whistle-blower advocacy groups immediately called foul, saying the memo would effectively eliminate the enforcement of all civil service rights.

In response, the Justice Department inserted a sentence into its brief in the case, noting that the defendants were not whistle-blowers, and that it was not seeking to undermine the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. But the brief did not explain what rights whistle-blowers in “sensitive” jobs would have if an agency targeted them in the future.

The Obama era has been a strange time for whistle-blowers. Agencies with investigative powers have become more responsive to tips from whistle-blowers. Important new laws have been enacted.

Yet during Mr. Obama’s first term, a record number of national security officials were prosecuted for allegedly leaking classified information to the press, a zeal that continues today, with aggressive tactics employed to locate officials who leaked information to Fox News and The Associated Press.

The administration apparently strongly supports whistle-blower rights — except when that support collides with its desire to appease the national security establishment.

It is surely too late for Mr. Obama to convince anyone that he intends to run the most open and transparent administration in history, as he promised to do at the outset of his first term. But it is not too late for him to issue a public statement, or another memo, affirming his refusal to undermine the landmark protections for federal workers he signed into law last year.