Civil servants, contractors and military personnel must do what they're told (which, as you observe from PUS and CDS's direction, is "STFU"). The risk is that a disgruntled individual, on hearing that the carrier programme is to be deleted (joke!), leaks it to try and provoke a media storm that forces the government to reconsider. That's the kind of toxicity that threats of jail time are intended to prevent. On the other hand, ministers, their special advisers and their parliamentary aides can leak what they want, when they want, since they are the ones either making the decisions or dealing with the political consequences anyway. I suspect the few little tit-bits that have come out so far are in the latter category, mainly because they're all positive. They were probably intended to keep the buildup to SDSR announcement ticking over nicely, providing a stark contrast to the opposition's meltdown over national security as the past week has unfolded. Another aspect is that the politicians would like to have a number of small-to-medium-size good news stories in the newspapers every day for a week (hence the drip-drip of announcements like Protector, Cam Fly With Me, SF funding, etc) rather than save it all up for one massive story on SDSR day, which some voters might overlook and which will quickly become chip paper anyway. It's all about the political narrative and keeping it in people's awarness....