It is, but NSA reports to the director of national intelligence, not the defense secretary, so it’s unclear (to me at least) that SecDef’s opinion of Anthropic counts for anything here
replyI guess DOD is large enough they have multiple parallel cabinet level positions
It’s not as clear as that. The NSA director is also, traditionally, dual-hatted as the Commander of CYBERCOM and thus a flag officer reporting ultimately to the SecDef. The DNI is responsible for coordinating/funding national intelligence activities but ultimately a lot of day to day operational decision making tends to flow through the pentagon. They would definitely need to abide by DoD policy
reply> They would definitely need to abide by DoD policy
replyThe policy in question is a statement by SecDef being reviewed by courts. I think it’s fair to ask whether DNI is actually constrained by that, or if it’s a judgement call.