Documents / FOIA release
This is a June 24, 2009 letter from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III, released as a Defense Intelligence Agency record. In it, Reid asks Lynn to set up a Restricted Special Access Program with a bigoted access list covering parts of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). He says the program has produced highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings. An attachment gives a preliminary access list that names Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies contractors.
o Undue attention by government, or private sector entities, not involved in AATIP or any international interest will directly or indirectly interfere with the daily AATIP mission and perhaps threaten the overall success of the program. ,. Allocation of personnel, support, and oversight. o Due to the highly specialized nature of the personnel involved with AATIP, the overt acknowledgement of their participation in the program will lead to an unnecessary security and counterintelligence risk. o Occasional assistance from specialized individuals within DoD, the scientific community, or academia may be necessary from time to time based on demonstrated subject matter expertise. Adequate protection of their identities or affiliation is critical to avoid unnecessary scrutiny. o Without the appropriate Restricted SAP protection, the cost associated with a compromise would be significantly higher than the cost associated with a properly administered Restricted SAP. o Protection of industry partnerships and participation is critical. Public awareness of an industry's AATIP affiliation may discourage that industry's further participation with the U.S. Government in this program. '" Application and engineering. o The nuanced manner in which some of these technologies will be collected, engineered and applied by the U.S. may require senior level government approval. The'se decision makers must be afforded the necessary time to make strategic decisions by restricting access to the "big picture" or overall intent of the program to those on a strict Bigoted List. o Associated exotic technologies likely involve extremely sophisticated concepts within the world of quantum mechanics, nuclear science, electromagnetic theory, gravities, and thermodynamics. Given that all of these have the potential to be use~ with catastrophic effects by adversaries, an unusually high degree of operational security and read-on discretion is required. Due to the expertise required to carry out the objectives of this program, we will require a small, specialized group of DoD personnel, who are dedicated to performing the SAP-related functions and executing programmatic requirements within the program. It is essential that the Government & military personnel who are already involved with this program are assigned to further support this program in a Restricted SAP capacity (see Attachment 1). These individuals all currently possess the appropriate security clearances and are already providing unique support to AATIP.
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FOIA release, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 4 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.