[Drew68]

When/Who changed the Navy's policy of "We do not discuss the operations of U.S. submarines".

The navy said nothing. From the article:

The Navy does not acknowledge the $3.2 billion submarine, the third and last of the Seawolf class of attack subs, has this capability.

“That’s going to be classified in nature,” said Kevin Sykes, a Navy spokesman. “You’re not going to get anybody to talk to you about that.”

It was a writer who disclosed these items of interest:

“The submarine is basically going to have as its major function intelligence gathering,” said James Bamford, author of two books on the National Security Agency.

He may be correct, he may be full of it.

[killjoy]

He may be correct, he may be full of it.

While his first book was quite good, he went downhill rapidly. He is pretty much full of it at this point. Stay far away from his newer stuff and any of his talking-head news appearances.