{"id":9832,"date":"2013-08-30T08:36:27","date_gmt":"2013-08-30T08:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9832"},"modified":"2013-08-30T08:36:27","modified_gmt":"2013-08-30T08:36:27","slug":"snowden-reveals-us-black-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9832","title":{"rendered":"Snowden reveals US ‘Black budget’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blackbudget\"<\/a>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\u2019s top-secret budget.<\/p>\n

The $52.6 billion \u201cblack budget\u201d for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former \u00adintelligence 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 the money or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress.<\/p>\n

Tables detail spending requests for agencies, as well as personnel breakdowns by pay grade, language expertise, and years of service.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The summary describes cutting-edge technologies, agent recruiting and ongoing operations. The 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States has made a considerable investment in the Intelligence Community since the terror attacks of 9\/11, a time which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology, and asymmetric threats in such areas as cyber-warfare,\u201d Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. wrote in response to inquiries from The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur budgets are classified as they could provide insight for foreign intelligence services to discern our top national priorities, capabilities and sources and methods that allow us to obtain information to counter threats,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Among the notable revelations in the budget summary:<\/p>\n

\u25cfSpending by the CIA has surged past that of every other spy agency, with $14.7 billion in requested funding for 2013. The figure vastly exceeds outside estimates and is nearly 50 percent above that of the National Security Agency, which conducts eavesdropping operations and has long been considered the behemoth of the community.<\/p>\n

\u25cfThe 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 \u201coffensive cyber operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u25cfLong before Snowden\u2019s leaks, the U.S. intelligence community worried about \u201canomalous behavior\u201d by employees and contractors with access to classified material. The NSA planned to ward off a \u201cpotential insider compromise of sensitive information\u201d by re-investigating at least 4,000 people this year who hold high-level security clearances.<\/p>\n

\u25cfU.S. intelligence officials take an active interest in friends as well as foes. Pakistan is described in detail as an \u201cintractable target,\u201d and counterintelligence operations \u201care strategically focused against [the] priority targets of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel.\u201d The latter is a U.S. ally but has a history of espionage attempts against the United States. – Washington Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s top-secret budget. The $52.6 billion \u201cblack budget\u201d for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former \u00adintelligence contractor … Continue reading “Snowden reveals US ‘Black budget’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,123],"tags":[5701,1235,2990,3030,5700],"class_list":["post-9832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","category-world","tag-black-budget","tag-cia","tag-edward-snowden","tag-nsa","tag-u-s-spy-agencies"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/blackbudget.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9834,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832\/revisions\/9834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}