Since October 4, 2018 any part of the federal budget can and has been declared a state secret Update – December 12, 2018 On October 4, 2018 federal government officials accepted the recommendation of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) that the government be allowed to misstate and move funds in order to hide expenditures if it is deemed necessary for national security purposes. The new guidelines are to apply to all agencies, not just the black budget. See page 3 of the July 2018 FASAB report for a summary of the proposed recommendations and see here for more detail. See here for the final statement – Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56. With the change in accounting guidelines, which is a full departure from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), only a few people with high level security clearances have the authority to determine what is deemed a national security issue and these same people will now be allowed to restate financial reports in order to conceal actual expenditures without any disclosure. No one but those few people would know that such modifications were made, thus making evaluation of government financial statements impossible. From this point forward, the federal government will keep two sets of books, one modified book for the public and one true book that is hidden. The FASAB recommendation effectively institutionalizes non-transparency in federal financial reporting. While many aspects of federal finances are non-transparent now because government has failed to comply with existing financial reporting laws, at least citizens had the laws working in their favor. Now citizens have no recourse; non-transparency is going to proceed as a matter of executive branch authority and policy. Accounting rules are often thought of as boring and of secondary importance. However, this particular change has enormous implications and yet few citizens are aware. People should know about these changes so they have an opportunity to voice their concerns and reverse the decision. https://missingmoney.solari.com/dod-and-hud-missing-money-supporting-documentation/