U.S. spy network’s successes, failures and objectives detailed in ‘black budget’ summary
Source: WaPo
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 governments 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.ntelligence 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.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)How secure is a country that can not afford to educate its youth because of the expense of its spooks?
Education is a National Defense issue
Health is a National Defense issue.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Without education no new super-weapon.
Might be a good thing.
On the other hand education will be necessary if we have to evacuate 7 billion people off a dying planet.