CIA, Other Spy Agencies Spent $54.6 Billion In Secret For 2011

WASHINGTON -- Congress appropriated a whopping $54.6 billion for classified intelligence operations in 2011, an increase over the previous two years.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper -- whose office was created after the 9/11 attacks to oversee the government's 16 intelligence agencies -- made the disclosure in a dry news release Friday. The top line number represents the aggregate amount of money lawmakers doled out for the National Intelligence Program's black budget last year.

"Any and all subsidiary information concerning the NIP budget, whether the information concerns particular intelligence agencies or particular intelligence programs, will not be disclosed," Clapper said, adding, "such disclosures could harm national security."

Congress appropriated $53.1 billion in 2010 to secret intelligence operations. That was a steep increase from 2009, when the intelligence community got $49.8 billion.

The Obama administration has requested $55 billion for civilian intelligence in the 2012 budget.

But that doesn't encompass all the spying carried out by the federal government. The Pentagon also spends billions on intelligence.

In fiscal year 2010 -- the first year the government released spending numbers -- civilian and military intelligence cost a record $80.1 billion.

Comments

[django707]

08:36 PM on 10/28/2011

A sneaky little 54 billion for classified spending.

I'd be willing to forego that expense and take my chances with the terrorists.

[molare88]

08:42 AM on 11/01/2011

nah you ca not throw the baby out with the bath water

[wonketteRAWKS]

04:18 PM on 10/28/2011

Ahhh this helps to explain the Obama Administration's changes to the FOIA!

[camelias and sweet tea]

04:15 PM on 10/28/2011

Don't MOST spy agencies do it in secret??? They do not tell us everything...

[camelias and sweet tea]

04:14 PM on 10/28/2011

Thank goodness this President is a Warrior against Terror, not a Warrior for the Rich like the GOP

[intotheabyss]

03:22 PM on 10/28/2011

The oligarchs need for us to pay for our own police state so that they can continue to dismantle our sovereignty and replace it with their global empire. Just as they get us to pay for their wars of conquest for profit. We pay, they play. We need a tax revolt.

[P R R]

03:17 PM on 10/28/2011

CIA, your friendly local terrorist organization. These guys need to go.

[Cautious]

03:03 PM on 10/28/2011

"Spy Agencies Step Up Game In Secret"

Isn't that what they do? Spy in secret?

[skraeling]

03:39 PM on 10/28/2011

not really...plundering treasuries and doing the work for big oil and high tech lobbies is their prime objective...on national security they have not done so well....

[Rick Eriksen]

02:54 PM on 10/28/2011

Good comments on this one...seems most people are pretty sharp on this subject...hope it doe not cost the CIA too much money to find out that no one has any faith in them whatsoever...Maybe they are they just to stupid to read the HP...they wouldhave saved them a lot of money...

[Fein]

02:46 PM on 10/28/2011

Glad you told us it was 'in secret'.

We won't tell anyone.

[KongYack]

02:38 PM on 10/28/2011

So Congress can pass $56.4 Billion for military agency spending with no problem, yet when President Obama ask for money to help create jobs and better our economy for the American people they absolutely can't do it because all of a sudden we have to watch spending.

Congress is a joke. We need get them out of here and get people in there who will work for the American people first.

[the serpents seed]

02:37 PM on 10/28/2011

More secrets in the "most transparent administration." Are you enjoying Bush's 3rd term?

[jimtodd]

02:25 PM on 10/28/2011

We spend $80 billion on intelligence and the evidence all says we are dumber than ever.

[hungryaardvark]

02:24 PM on 10/28/2011

Democracy is dead. ...one nation under surveillance with liberty and justice for none.

Americans have the illusion of freedom of speech until some government agency decides to take it away. Which is happening by the minute today.

When Americans have to live in fear of being under constant surveillance, the country is dead.

We are very close to that finish line.

Whether the AMerican population simply surrenders to total fascism/corporatism/oligarchy/plutocracy or rejects those options and demands actual freedoms remains to be seen.

The closer we get to that finish line, the more likely it becomes that total revolution is the only alternative.

The Occupiers are seeking an array of changes that could prevent revolution. But it looks like the government is rejecting all substantive change and demanding the revolution alternative.

Sometimes one gets what he asks for.

Obama, is anyone in the WH listening? Or is everyone too busy running around taking campaign bribes?

[rotinfx16]

03:41 PM on 10/28/2011

Am I understanding you? You are saying that unless 80% of the population gives in to 20% of the population, that the 20% will rise up in armed rebellion?
If I am restating the case accurately, you are a walking, talking case for the right to bear arms.
Just how does this 20%, most whom are shirkers of military service and are wannabe egg-heads, propose to suppress the 80%? Are you going to defecate on sidewlks until we give in? Smoke so much pot that we can't handle it? Or are you just going to hang around the streets, unshowered for months?

[thomas vesely]

08:20 PM on 10/28/2011

the %s you quote are invented by you.
as for your sarcasm, puerile.

[hungryaardvark]

11:16 PM on 10/28/2011

80% of Americans believe that the financial system is fundamentally corrupt and needs to be changed. The privatization of profit and socialization of loss is. The voting system in America has been corrupted by electronic voting and unlimited corporate ownership of the system. The corporations are destroying air and water quality for everyone so that they can make quarterly profits. America has become a crime syndicate.

The people who seek change are not slackers. They are the clear majority who sympathize with the goals of solving these and other horrible problems that have become fundamental to American business and political life.

Your characterization of those who are defending YOUR constitutional rights suggests that you don't know how they have been destroyed since 2000. Or worse, that you know and don't care. Or even worse, that you know and are part of the system that is responsible for the destruction of America.

Whether you work or not, whether you drink or do drugs or not, whether you are a criminal or not is not the issue. Those things are not the problem.

The problem is in people's refusal to think and understand that their fragile society is collapsing due to the abject criminality of the few to the detriment of the many. Add to that that those who refuse to think are failing to use the limited time available to avoid even worse consequences for everyone are risking the very revolution that they claim to wish to avoid.

[Anonmouse33]

02:21 PM on 10/28/2011

wonder what the tally is after the drug trafficking?

[Tierce]

02:03 PM on 10/28/2011

If the public knew how many people were being paid to just drive around our highways and being put up in motels and fed they would be amazed. And they are all one big family called homeland security. I think they waste a lot of taxpayer money. And I have told them so.