The Department of War put the NDA fight on letterhead.
On September 14, 2026, it issued a legal waiver authorizing current and former DoW service members, civilian employees, and contractors to give UAP-related National Defense Information to designated representatives of PURSUE – the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell posted the release.
This is the public DoW version of what Fox News reported in July and what Aaron Lukas put in an ODNI memo in August. The new text is more specific than either of those: it names Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements, not only ordinary NDAs, and it limits the protection to communications with the PURSUE team.
It is not a license to talk to reporters, podcasts, or an open hearing. The Department says information that enters the channel still faces “systematic review, security evaluation, and potential declassification.”
What the Waiver Actually Authorizes
The Department described an “authorized, legally protected disclosure mechanism” for people who hold, or once held, access to UAP-related National Defense Information.
“This waiver establishes an authorized, legally protected disclosure mechanism for current and former personnel to provide UAP-related National Defense Information (NDI) to designated representatives of the PURSUE effort.” – Department of War, September 14, 2026 (release)
Covered people, as the announcement describes them: all current and former DoW service members, civilian personnel, and contractors with that access. The July Fox report had focused on former employees and contractors. Today’s language includes people still inside the building.
The enforcement line is the one witnesses have been waiting to see in print:
“The waiver supersedes civil and administrative enforcement provisions contained within Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements (SAPIAs) previously executed within the United States, strictly for communications directed to the PURSUE team.”
“Strictly” is doing the work. John Greenewald at The Black Vault noted the announcement does not authorize public release, does not say classified information may go to journalists, and does not itself declassify anything.
The Department framed the problem as fear, not as a catalog of programs:
“Historically, individuals with direct knowledge of UAP-related programs cited concerns regarding potential legal liability, loss of clearances, or administrative prosecution stemming from standard NDAs and SAP indoctrination terms.”
“This waiver removes those barriers by explicitly authorizing covered disclosures to PURSUE representatives without triggering breach-of-agreement penalties or standard NDA violations.”
It did not name the people who raised those concerns, the programs they meant, or any example of information that had been withheld from PURSUE because of an NDA. Leonard David quoted a further line: the waiver is “targeted legal relief” for “systematic review, security evaluation, and potential declassification of historical and ongoing UAP data.”
AARO Already Had a Statutory Door
Congress built an authorized UAP reporting channel years before PURSUE existed.
50 U.S.C. § 3373b – from the FY2023 NDAA – tells the Secretary of Defense, acting through AARO, to take reports of UAP events and of government or contractor programs tied to retrieval, analysis, reverse engineering, and related security. An “authorized disclosure” through that mechanism “shall not be subject to a nondisclosure agreement entered into by the individual who makes the disclosure.”
FOIA records Greenewald published in 2024 and 2025 show AARO putting that authority in writing when it tried to interview David Grusch.
In a November 19, 2023 message released under FOIA case 24-F-0266, AARO told Grusch it was “authorized to receive any information related to UAP regardless of classification, and notwithstanding any nondisclosure agreement you may have signed,” and offered a meeting in a SCIF.
A later-released “Verbal Legal Advisement” made the limit as clear as today’s DoW release: for the limited purpose of that oral history, inside that SCIF, the information was not subject to the NDA the witness had signed. When the interview ended, the agreements remained in force.
Grusch still did not sit for the planned November 14, 2023 meeting. His documented objection was not “AARO has no NDA waiver.” It was that discussing UAP work would also expose conventional classified and compartmented programs covered by other security classification guides – including what he described as potentially “bigoted or WAIVED” SAPs.
Today’s announcement says the PURSUE waiver covers “UAP-related National Defense Information.” It does not say how collateral classified information is treated when a witness cannot describe the UAP piece without describing the rest of the compartment. Greenewald asked DoW for the underlying directive and implementation guidance. As of his article, the Department had not answered.
What Changed From July and August
| Date | What landed | Who issued it |
|---|---|---|
| July 21, 2026 | Fox News: Trump directed DoW and the IC to abrogate NDAs for briefings to AARO or PURSUE | Administration officials, not a public order |
| July 31 / August 1 | Lukas memo: prior NDAs blocking disclosure to the President or designees “no longer in force”; IC has 30 days to name PURSUE designees | ODNI, released by Rep. Eric Burlison |
| September 14 | Public legal waiver: NDAs and SAPIAs superseded for communications to the PURSUE team; current and former DoW personnel and contractors | Department of War press release |
Two differences are worth keeping straight.
First, this release does not name AARO. Liberation Times editor Christopher Sharp flagged that immediately: the public text treats PURSUE as the intake office. That matches how the White House has been building the file portal. It does not repeal AARO’s statute. It also does not, on its face, add the AARO door to this particular waiver.
Second, the DoW text still does not add anti-retaliation language. Sharp noted the gap. So did Jeremy Corbell, who called the waiver a signal of “interest in information collection” and said people considering it will have questions. A waiver of civil and administrative NDA/SAPIA penalties for talking to PURSUE is not immunity, is not a restored clearance, and is not a promise that DIG, a security office, or a contractor will treat the witness as protected.
Rep. Burlison has already said an NDA waiver for Grusch still leaves the core problem: restored clearances. Today’s release does not answer that.
The Test Is Intake, Not the Headline
PURSUE has published five public tranches since May. Those drops are records the government already held. Today’s action is supposed to bring in people who have not yet talked.
The test is the same one the July NDA article laid out: do current and former personnel actually schedule sessions, does PURSUE treat those sessions as real intake, and does anything they bring survive review in a form the public can read?
The Department has now said, in a press release, that talking to PURSUE about UAP-related National Defense Information is an authorized disclosure and will not trigger ordinary NDA or SAP indoctrination penalties. The underlying directive is not yet public. Until it is, the comparison with AARO’s 2023 paperwork – and with Grusch’s collateral-SAP objection – cannot be finished.
Sources: Department of War release · The Black Vault · Leonard David · Sean Parnell on X · Christopher Sharp on X · Jeremy Corbell on X · 50 U.S.C. § 3373b · UFOUAP – Trump NDA directive · UFOUAP – Lukas memo
