According to the information – which comes from two sources with insight and internal documents that the newspaper has taken part of – the new rules will apply to both military and civilian personnel at the Pentagon.
A total of over 5,000 people at the department may be affected.
The documents state no limitations on who the rules apply to, which means that the country's highest generals may be among those who will have to sign the agreements and undergo the tests.
This would mean an escalation in what the newspaper calls Defense Minister Pete Hegseth's "war on leaks and dissent".
The secrecy agreements will prohibit personnel from sharing information that is not publicly available "without approval or through a defined process". Language that resembles the rules that Hegseth announced in September.
Those rules state that journalists covering the Pentagon are not allowed to move freely in the building and must promise to only publish approved information.
Even non-classified information should, according to Hegseth's previous decree, be stopped if there is no formal approval. This would mean a stop to anonymous sources, which are common in American newspapers.
