Time to End the Senate’s NDAA Secrecy

The National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $585 billion in Pentagon spending. The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) keeps the public almost entirely in the dark on this mammoth authorization bill. Last year, the text of the bill considered by the committee was not made available publicly and the markup was closed to the public. In contrast, the House Armed Services Committee has held an open markup for years.

Sixty groups, including OpenTheGovernment.org, joined the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) in a letter to the SASC yesterday, asking that the committee consider the NDAA with at least as much transparency as their House counterpart by:

• Giving the public access to all subcommittee and the full committee markups of the NDAA, including live and archived webcasting on the SASC website.
• Posting online the: 1) text of the actual bill the subcommittees and full committee will amend during markup at least 24 hours prior; 2) amendments considered during markup no later than 24 hours after markup (though preferably when they are filed); and 3) the NDAA as amended and approved by the subcommittees and full committee within 48 hours of the markup.

Learn more about POGO's effort to open up the Pentagon's budget at OpenNDAA.org