John Plumb, assistant secretary for space policy at the Department of Defense, said Kathleen Hicks, DOD’s deputy secretary and an inductee into Executive Mosaic’s 2023 Wash100, is overseeing a review of how the Pentagon uses Special Access Program classification for space programs and across the department, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.
He said at an event Tuesday that the use of SAPs “has kind of spiraled out of control,” which he said is hampering information sharing with allies and across programs.
“Inside the department, the deputy secretary has directed kind of a SAP reform effort, and that is hopefully coming to some conclusion soon. I can’t say too much about any of that, obviously, but that’s across all domains,” Plumb said.
He stressed that his goal is to “bring down” data secrecy to a level that would enable the Pentagon “to maximize our ability to be ready to fight.”