AARO/DHS Letter on KONA BLUE Program Records

February 5, 2024

The Honorable Kathleen H. Hicks
Deputy Secretary of Defense
1010 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1010
Dear Dr. Hicks:
Thank you for your letter on September 28, 2023.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agrees to provide the Department of
Defense (DoD) with documents and relevant information associated with KONA BLUE. KONA
BLUE was a DHS prospective special access program (PSAP) terminated on February 10, 2012.
The following actions were taken:
• All DHS documents associated with the KONA BLUE PSAP are declassified and
approved for public release.
• The strike-out method was utilized to retain visibility of prior classifications and
redactions were made based on policy and legal review.
• All pertinent DHS records have been searched and no additional information
associated with the KONA BLUE PSAP has been discovered.
I appreciate your continued cooperation and support for DHS. Should you wish to
discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,

Kristie Canegallo
Acting Deputy Secretary

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.
These decision makers must be afforded tl;le 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.
'cf 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 ofDoD 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.