U.S. spy network’s successes,
failures and objectives detailed
in ‘black budget’ summary
By Barton Gellman and Greg Miller
Washington Post
Thursday, August 29, 1:02 PM
U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government’s top secret budget.
The $52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses those funds or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress.
Read the documents.
(Inside the intelligence 'black budget')
The 178-page budget summary for the National Intelligence Program details the successes, failures and objectives of the 16 spy agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, which has 107,035 employees.
The summary describes cutting-edge technologies, agent recruiting and ongoing operations. The Washington Post is withholding some information after consultation with U.S. officials who expressed concerns about the risk to intelligence sources and methods. Sensitive details are so pervasive in the documents that The Post is publishing only summary tables and charts online....
WaPo reporters Gellman and Miller note the following highlights in these documents:
• With $14.7 billion being requested by it for 2013 funding, CIA spending has "surged past" the budgets of all of our country's other intelligence agencies; and it's more than 50% larger than the NSA's budget.
• Both the CIA and the NSA "...have begun aggressive new efforts to hack into foreign computer networks to steal information or sabotage enemy systems, embracing what the budget refers to as 'offensive cyber-operations.'"
• NSA planning for 2013 included the investigation of "at least 4,000 possible insider threats." And, the documents demonstrate that "...long before Snowden's leaks the U.S. intelligence community worried about “anomalous behavior” by personnel with access to highly classified material."
• Many statements in these documents indicate a focus by the U.S. intelligence community upon "foes as well as friends," as they single out priority target nations such as "China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel" throughout.
• "Counterterrorism programs employ one in four members of the intelligence workforce and account for one-third of all spending."
• The documents indicate that "Iran, China and Russia are difficult to penetrate, but North Korea’s may be the most opaque." Further highlighting our nation's spy agencies' lack of knowledge about North Korea, the document cites: "...five 'critical' gaps in U.S. intelligence about Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs..." and the reality that "...analysts know virtually nothing about the intentions of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un."
Here's a link to a WaPo web page containing a scrollable, 17-page, "Top Secret" document ("FY 2013 Congressional Budget Justification, Volume I, National Intelligence Program Summary," which "...represents spending levels proposed to the House and Senate intelligence committees in February 2012") that's filled with a LOT of info and graphics, titled: "Inside the 2013 U.S. intelligence 'black budget'." (The newspaper does a really outstanding job as it provides readers with assistance related to the graphics contained in it.)
Additionally, here's another link to an excellent graphic presentation from the WaPo's WonkBlog: "America's secret intelligence budget, in 11 charts."
One of the biggest travesties more enlightening aspects of this story, IMHO, is visually summed up in this WaPo graphic (per the set of graphics noted in the paragraph, immediately above), titled: "Spending by mission objective." In that visual, we learn that more than $20 billion of this $52.6 billion budget is spent: "Warning policymakers, military and civilian authorities of threats, such as economic instability, state failure, societal unrest and emergence of regional powers."
We also learn via the graphic linked in the previous paragraph that (while the Department of Homeland Security's FY 2013 budget was $59.501 billion, or thereabouts; and those funds are/were spent to "protect Americans" from engaging in social activism travesties such as THIS and THIS, via a network of 78 Fusion Centers, run in conjunction with the NSA's, the FBI's and the National Counterterrorism Center's participation) our government independently budgeted a paltry $3.8 billion, or 7.2% of its total "black budget," in FY 2013 "defending" our Homeland against foreign espionage. Reiterating, that's above and beyond the $20+ billion it's spent/spending this fiscal year: "Warning policymakers, military and civilian authorities of threats, such as economic instability, state failure, societal unrest and emergence of regional powers." (One would assume warnings regarding matters such as "economic instability, state failure, societal unrest and emergence of regional powers" would also apply to domestic activities.)
I'm sure this series of leaked documents will keep pundits busy through the long weekend!