UFO WhistlebSpecial Access Programs



Aloha all, I wish to pursue the issue of whistleblower testimony and 
how important it is to relax the strict evidentiary rules that might 
be applied to whistleblower testimonies alleging reverse engineering 
of extraterrestrial vehicles, retrieval of crashed extraterrestrial 
vehicles, and of secret agreements with extraterrestrial biological 
entities. An example of such a whistleblower is Bob Lazar who 
allegedly worked at the secure facility of S4 in the vicinity of 
Area 51, but had great difficulty in supplying documentary evidence 
supporting his alleged work at S4 on an extraterrestrial vehicle. He 
even claimed that the subsequent absence of documentary evidence of 
his two Master's degrees were a result of these being somehow pulled 
from the public record. This has led to great criticism from UFO 
researchers arguing that without documentary evidence of his 
employment and academic degrees, Lazar's testimony is not credible. 
In fact, Stanton Friedman claimed "Not one shred of evidence has 
been put forth to support this story" (see http://www.v-j-
enterprises.com/sflazar.html ). This is not at all accurate. Some 
evidence was found to support parts of Lazar's story that he was 
employed as a nuclear physicist at Los Alamos before being relocated 
to S4. 

Lazar was able to supply a pay slip substantiating his contractual 
employment for Naval Intelligence for a short period. In addition 
investigators associated with George Knapp were able to find a 
telephone directory for Los Alamos that included Lazar's name, and 
even employee corroboration that Lazar had worked at Los Alamos. 
Also, Lazar was able to supply the name of the individual for doing 
background security checks that was confirmed by George Knapp. For 
discussion of evidence supporting Lazar see: 
http://www.karinya.com/travel2.htm ). A furthermore source of 
corroboration was John Lear who alleged that Lazar was able to take 
Lear and their two wives to view the testing of a reverse engineered 
saucer. This incident apparently sparked Lazar's termination as an 
employee at S4, and supports Lazar's claims that he knew of the 
testing schedule of the craft that were reverse engineered from the 
retrieved ETV.  

Applying strict evidentiary rules to Lazar's testimony may be 
insufficient to substantiate his allegations due to the absence of 
key documents. Critics such as Stanton Friedman have concluded that 
Lazar is "bunk". However, if one relaxes these strict evidentiary 
rules on account of the special security procedures applying to 
Lazar's alleged employment, we discover three things. First, that a 
program involving extraterrestrial related technologies would be so 
highly classified that knowledge of these is to very few individuals 
with a demonstrable 'need to know'. Second, projects involving 
alleged extraterrestrial vehicles are so highly classified, that 
draconian security procedures are involved. Third, it is possible 
that security procedures are in place that involve the removal of 
public records that might support the testimony of such witnesses. 

What I will do in what follows is show how the kind of program that 
Lazar allegedly worked in would be at the very least a Waived 
Unacknowledged Special Access Program where knowledge of this 
program was strictly limited to a few with a 'need to know' and 
where Congress exercises no effective oversight of the program. I 
also will argue that the Security Manager for such classified 
programs has extraordinary power to determine security procedures 
without any effective Congressional Oversight. This would make it 
possible for the Security Manager of the classified program Lazar 
allegedly worked in to arrange for the removal of public records 
substantiating Lazar's employment, and the intimidation of witnesses 
who could corroborate Lazar's testimony. 

The first point to consider here is that such whistleblower 
testimonies would be in reference to highly classified programs in 
the US that are regarded as deep black. Indeed these programs are so 
black that only the chairs of defense and intelligence committees 
are apprised of their existence, without being given any details or 
documents. It is clear that deep black programs allegedly involving 
extraterrestrial entities or vehicles would at the very least 
qualify as one of these special access programs. These are highly 
classified and it is a federal crime to discuss such programs 
and 'whistleblowers' are subject to significant legal penalties and 
can not claim whistleblower protection in revealing any wrong doing 
with these programs. So here is a brief overview of Special Access 
Programs that is extracted from a larger report I did on the CIA's 
black budget. 
(Note: numbers in parenthesis refer to footnotes in the Report)
Source: http://www.exopolitics.org/Report-Black-Budget.htm

Conventional Oversight System for the CIA's and DoD's Classified 
Programs 
This conventional oversight system for highly classified 
intelligence activities and/or covert projects concerns Controlled 
Access Programs (CAPs) of the intelligence community or Special 
Access Programs (SAP) of the DoD. CAPs/SAPs are programs that have 
additional security measures attached to them over and above the 
normal classificatory system (confidential, secret, top-secret) 
attached to most classified information and programs. (93) CAPs/SAPs 
are divided into two classes `acknowledged' and `unacknowledged' as 
described in a 1997 Senate Commission Report: "Publicly acknowledged 
programs are considered distinct from unacknowledged programs, with 
the latter colloquially referred to as "black" programs because 
their very existence and purpose are classified."(94) 
A `waived' CAP/SAP is so sensitive that only eight members of 
Congress (the chairs and ranking members of the four intelligence 
[or defense] committees divided between the House of Representatives 
and Senate) are notified of a waived CAP/SAP without being given any 
information about it. (95) This would enable them to truthfully 
declare no knowledge of such a program if asked, thereby maintaining 
secrecy of this CAP/SAP. If unacknowledged CAPs/SAPs are `black 
programs', then `waived' unacknowledged CAPs/SAPs are `deep black'. 
The most secret of the intelligence and covert operations conducted 
by the CIA are `deep black' CAPs. 
CAPs are funded through the `official' black budget and in theory 
are subject to both Executive and Congressional oversight. (96) In 
practice though, Congressional oversight in the case of waived 
acknowledged CAPs is nominal as revealed by the 1997 Senate 
Commission Report. President Clinton's Executive Order 12958 issued 
on April 17, 1995, reformed how CAPs/SAPs would in future be created 
and oversight established. The main component of the Executive Order 
was that only the Director of Central Intelligence or the 
Secretaries of State, Defense and Energy (or their principal 
deputies) could create a CAP/SAP. CAPs/SAPs would be kept to 
an "absolute minimum"; and would be created when "the vulnerability 
of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional," and their 
secrecy cannot be protected by the normal classification system. 
(97) 

As far as oversight was concerned, the key clause in Executive Order 
12958 was an effort by the Clinton administration to coordinate 
oversight through a central executive office (Information Security 
Oversight Office) that would be responsible to the National Security 
Council (NSC) and annually report to the President. (98) The 
President's effort to centralize and coordinate oversight features 
of CAPs/SAPs was resisted by both the Defense and Intelligence 
communities. While in theory, oversight coordination occurs in the 
Information Security Oversight Office set up in the NSC that issues 
an annual report to the President; the power to approve or terminate 
a CAP/SAP lies with the respective intelligence community and DoD 
committees and executive officers. In general, Executive Office 
oversight of CAPs/SAPs has been described as "nothing more than a 
sop used to placate anyone who questions the propriety of an 
administration's covert action policy." (99) 
Oversight of CAPs/SAPs is performed by a committee comprising 
officials from the Intelligence Community, the Controlled Access 
Program Oversight Committee (CAPOC); and a similar committee in the 
DoD, the Special Access Program Oversight Committee (SAPOC). (100) 
CAPOC reviews CAPs and Sensitive Compartmented Information 
(intelligence data) in the intelligence community annually and can 
recommend their `compartmentation' or termination. (101) It is 
however, only the Director or Deputy Director of the CIA that has 
the authority to "create, modify, or terminate controlled access 
programs." (102) :
  
"While CAPOC provides more direct oversight and coordination of 
CAPs, it is not ultimately the body that oversees the CIA's most 
secret projects conducted in collaboration with the military 
intelligence community. The exclusion of some CIA CAPs from CAPOC is 
indicated in the following Directive from the Director of the CIA 
(DCI): "The DCI or DDCI may waive review by the CAPOC for programs 
covered by equivalent oversight mechanisms, or when review by the 
CAPOC is unnecessary to carry out the DCI's responsibilities." 
(103). Essentially, if the DCI deems it unnecessary for CAPOC to 
provide oversight information of a CAP, then CAPOC plays no role in 
monitoring the program. 
  
While the DCI is legally obliged to verbally notify Congress of the 
CIA's most sensitive CAPs without providing specific budgetary or 
operational details, there is no independent way of confirming if he 
indeed is doing so. Similarly, the DCI could similarly withhold 
information of the CIA's most sensitive CAPs to the National 
Security Council's `Information Security Oversight Office" (ISOO). 
  
The extent to which authority is vested in the different security 
agencies is the way in which program managers of CAPs/SAPs have the 
authority to come up with their own rules concerning access and 
security. A 1994 Commission Report stated:  
The special access system gave the program manager the ability to 
decide who had a need-to-know and thus to strictly control access to 
the information. But elaborate, costly, and largely separate 
structures emerged. According to some, the system has grown out of 
control with each SAP [CAP] program manager able to set independent 
security rules. (Joint Security Commission Redefining Security: A 
Report to the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central 
Intelligence (Washington, D.C., February 28, 1994) 
http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/jsc/chap2.html )
.....
(End of Extract) 

There are a few important points that can be drawn from the above 
extract. First, knowledge of a waived Special Access Program (SAP) 
is strictly limited and only the Defense and/or Intelligence 
Committee chairs in both houses of Congress are apprised of these 
without being given any detailed information. This means that while 
Congress is de jure exercising oversight of these programs as 
prescribed by the US Constitution, it is de facto exercising no 
oversight at all. Basically, the SAP Program Managers are free to 
run these and the only effective oversight comes from committees 
within the military-intelligence establishment. Most revealing is 
that the program managers of SAPs have the power to decide who has 
a 'need-to-know" and implement their own "independent security 
rules". Basically without any real congressional oversight system in 
place, the program managers of SAP's can implement draconian 
security procedures. These procedures would be entirely lawful due 
to the de jure oversight exercised by Congress. So in theory, the 
security manager of the SAP can arrange for the removal of public 
records such as University degrees and employment record. This would 
be entirely legal and any University Registrar or Employer that 
refused to comply with such a request would be violating a lawful 
request for the removal of public information that violates national 
security. This would be a federal offense and demonstrates the legal 
mechanism that could be used for the removal of the public records 
that Lazar alleges were withdrawn in his case. Also, the employment 
slip that Lazar possessed that associated him with the Naval 
Intelligence points to the program he worked on being a Special 
Access Program under the purview of Naval Intelligence.

In conclusion, the Bob Lazar case is very important since I believe 
it demonstrates how a whistleblower will have extraordinary 
difficulty in substantiating his/her allegations due to the removal 
of public documents that support their credibility. My 
recommendation is that taking into account the extraordinary 
security power of the managers of SAPs such as Lazar's the rules of 
evidence are considerably relaxed so we can properly evaluate the 
implications of their testimony rather than getting into debates 
over the conclusiveness of the evidence supporting testimonies such 
as Lazar's. Despite my respect for Stanton Friedman's intellect and 
fidelity to detail,  I strongly disagree with his evaluation of the 
Bob Lazar case, and conclude that Lazar is a genuine whistleblower 
revealing important information concerning a waived Special Access 
Program at S4 involving a retrived extraterrestrial vehicle.

In peace

Michael Salla, PhD
www.exopolitics.org