Budget Non-Disclosure Agreements

[John T. Fishel]

in a different position from other members of the Administration (and other service members). While they are bound to give the Adminsitration's position on an issue to Congress in a formal hearing they are also required by law to give their personal professional judgment - when asked for it in a hearing - even if it contradicts the Administration position. This, BTW, is what got GEN Shinseki in trouble with Rumsfeld even though the SECDEF could not fire him for it.

Cheers

JohnT

[J Wolfsberger]

Cliff, I think you read more into it than is actually there. My experience with NDAs has been in the private sector, and I've both signed and initiated a number of them. They are signed between two parties to establish some degree of legal protection for proprietary information the two parties want to exchange. Sometimes one of the parties is a government entity, but I've never heard of an NDA between two government entities. And I'm dumbfounded at the idea of an NDA between a manager/executive and a subordinate.

The article states:

"Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters Wednesday that those involved in formulating the budget for fiscal year 2010 have been required to sign a nondisclosure form ...

"...Morrell commented on a questioner's remark that there are 'criminal penalties' if the 'information is secret and therefore classified.'

" 'Classified information with potential criminal consequences gets leaked all the time. This is to reinforce the message that indeed this is classified material...' "

I think these were merely forms to remind people of the responsibility not to disclose classified information to anyone without a need to know and proper clearance. It may also have been used as a tool to make clear that attempting to play the standard beltway game of leaks to bring outside pressure to bear was not going to be tolerated.

[Ken White]

the latter, though no one was going to be so crass as to mention that. The classified angle is elsewhere covered. Voluminously...