Posted on 10/30/2007 4:29:10 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said it had spent $43.5 billion on spying in fiscal 2007, as it bowed on Tuesday to a law ordering disclosure of a figure the government has kept secret for most of the past 60 years.
"Disclosure of the amount of the budget is a good first step toward accountability," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which has campaigned for publication of the annual intelligence budget.
The figure, which is roughly equal to the entire economy of Croatia or Qatar, dwarfs the estimated intelligence budgets of any other country including the closest U.S. ally, Britain, which spends about 10 percent of the amount, he said.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published the figure for overall U.S. intelligence spending in fiscal 2007, which ended last month.
Congress mandated the disclosure in a law passed in August to implement recommendations of a commission that investigated the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The intelligence office said it would keep secret other details about the budget. Intelligence agencies had long resisted disclosing their budgets on the grounds that enemies could learn from the information.
The $43.5 billion is about what outside experts had expected, Aftergood said, and is about 50 percent more than the government is believed to have spent in 2001.
"That's a large increase in spending that is difficult to spend wisely," Aftergood said. He said the figure does not include an estimated $10 billion or more in military intelligence spending.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
So does this mean if Hillary wins she’ll have to disclose how much is being spent to keep files on Republicans?
Add $5 Billion to military intel, subtract $40 Billion from CIA and affiliates...and we’d have better intel all around.
Dempcraps, raise taxes, fund socialism and gun control. Nothing complicated about them. Democrats see themselves as the politburo who runs the place, not who is the representative of the poeple. All tyrannies start this way.
The POS Demorat Traitors sure enjoy doing anything possible to assist Our Enemies! Your Picture is worth a Billion Words!
There is not a lot of evidence that we actually are.
Ummmm...of that $44 Billion or so, only about $5 Billion goes to the CIA NOW. Around $38 Billion of the intel budget IS military. There's about a billion in pocket change spent on intel by the FBI, Treasury, etc.
The NSA and NRO both each spend more (around $7.5 Billion) than the CIA per year, and the individual military services spend more on Intel than the CIA.
None of this information is remotely useful to an enemy, really, and anyway it was possible for various people to estimate pretty accurately from unclass sources.
The fact is that the majority of the budget does not need to be classified. Classifications are simply used to build financial and political empires.
"That's a large increase in spending that is difficult to spend wisely," Aftergood said. He said the figure does not include an estimated $10 billion or more in military intelligence spending."
One more loss for the men and women who protect our country.
I suppose the Democrats are happy.
The only reason the liberals want this disclosure is to know how much they can eventually divert to socialist programs in the future, but cutting the budget of the people who protect us.
I agree, it is not the amount that counts, it is what you do with it that counts.
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