The $258 of Intelligence You Bought This Year
Congratulations to Steven Aftergood, whose persistent efforts to get the government to reveal the topline intelligence budget have finally paid off. Yesterday, the government officially announced that it spent $80.1 billion on intelligence in the last year, up 7% in just the last year and 100% since 9/11.
The government announced Thursday that it had spent $80.1 billion on intelligence activities over the past 12 months, disclosing for the first time not only the amount spent by civilian intelligence agencies but also by the military.
The so-called National Intelligence Program, run by the CIA and other agencies that report to the Director of National Intelligence, cost $53.1 billion in fiscal 2010, which ended Sept. 30, while the Military Intelligence Program cost an additional $27 billion.
[snip]
The disclosure Thursday that intelligence spending had risen to $80.1 billion, an increase of nearly 7 percent over the year before and a record high, led to immediate calls for fiscal restraint on Capitol Hill.
That’s $258 a year for every man, woman, and child in this country. $21 a month per person, or $86 for a family of four.
But don’t worry; I’m sure all the people losing their homes and relying on food stamps can afford that much intelligence. Think of it like a second phone bill–that’s undoubtedly where at least a chunk of that money is going.
In response to this admission, both DiFi and Silvestre Reyes issued statements promising improved fiscal oversight of the intelligence community. That’s great! They can have the phone companies fight over the right to get paid handsomely to spy on us!
You know, for $80.1 billion, you’d think we’d have found Osama bin Laden.
I guess not.
Or maybe some of that money went to assure that we did not find OBL. We need that terrrorrrist out there to keep the spigot open.
depends what the intent of the spending was …
Just think: I could probably get 3 completely detailed credit reports for $258 —-and some identity theft insurance!
Hopefully this money will keep the terrorists from blowing up the tent cities springing up across the land!
Good on Steven Aftergood! That letter is from 1997! The Bill he talks about there never got out of committee. Is there a Current Bill or a Law?
From the WaPo story:
So the total amount for spies military and otherwise is $80 Billion a year. I do not believe that number.
We are told their are 800,000 privatized espionage contractors, who are not government employees. Just a rough estimate say $50,000 per year per corporate spy. That comes to $40 Billion dollars a year. We taxpayers also pay for privatized armies in the war zones. Each military soldier costs one million dollars a year. So mercenaries likely cost more.
What some of that money buys US:
Lib Dem Ministers Complicit in Torture; Craig Murray; 10/29/10
[graphic content warning-harpie]
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/10/lib_dem_ministe.html#comments
Ahh! Intelligence and Security…what more could a person ask for?
Michael Furlong was using contractors as spies and assassins how shocking.
It is shocking that private contractors set up their own murder squads. Does Pat Tillman’s assassination seem so shocking now that our government can murder anyone. Our government can also pay someone to murder anyone. The Corporate Fascist Tea Party has already taken over the government.
Sounds a lot like it was Lockheed, as much as Furlong, involved in that one, doesn’t it?
What coincidentally benevolent timing, that an ex-DOJ DAG who was Gen Counsel of Lockheed managed to get clear on this one before it broke loose.
From Andy Worthington:
Khadr’s statement in the edited form made available to the media.
And @10: Ooops. [I knew I would do that!] Sorry, wrong thread. OY!
CR:
Tweedledee and Tweedledumer of the Congress promising oversight. I’m comforted.
DiFi has been on the intelligence committee for many years and she would have us believe that she is only now becoming aware of the amount of money involved. And that she couldn’t have done anything about it before now.
Boxturtle (She clearly thinks (hopes?) us DFH’s toke enough to have major memory problems)
Ha! They sure like to preen for the camera’s don’t they. But when it comes to answering for their [lack of] action, it’s not so easy to trap the little critters.
I usually give about double my end for the intel to amnesty international, southern poverty law center and other good groups to try and balance it out since democracy has failed.
I feel like a cell on the tenticle of the anti-Kochtopus.
O/T
Sergay’s back in the news! What he could tell us, if we could only get him to talk. Of course, that won’t happen as we’ve got to protect secrets of important people and entities. Our secrets? Pfffffft.
Federal Government Asks for Closed Courtroom to Protect Goldman Sachs Secrets
LINK.
off topic.
Dengre talks to Jack Abramoff.
Must read for anyone interested in the Abramoff scandal imo.
Please try to overlook my snottiness on this item, but as near as I can tell we have US troops in Afghanistan who don’t speak Pashtun or any of the local languages, nor do they understand the culture(s). Ditto other nations.
I’m completely fed up with the defense-intell complex bullshit that passes for ‘intel’.
I’m a data maven; I love data!
But when it’s all data, with no grasp of local cultures or languages, then it’s all 95% bullshit as far as I’m concerned.
If that $258 were actually worth that amount in terms of value, I’d be far less cynical and bitter.
If we are paying that much, then we need to not privatize one bit of our intel. Privatization increases security risks on many levels.
Perfectly put.
Just absurd that they call it “intelligence”. Yeah, knowing a bunch of secrets makes you “intelligent”. What a farce.
Feh. That’s less than the 300% increase in healthcare costs…but I’ve heard tell that that is “now under control”? Yeah, well, I guess the intelligence budget could never balloon much more than it has… (yeah, right!)