Annual US Intelligence Bill Tops $80 Billion 230
Ponca City writes "The LA Times reports that the US government has disclosed its annual intel budget for the first time in more than a decade: $80.1 billion on intelligence gathering, representing about 12% of the nation's $664-billion defense budget. The government revealed the total intelligence budget twice before, in 1997 and 1998, in response to a lawsuit. It was $26.6 billion and $26.7 billion, respectively, meaning the budget has tripled in 12 years. 'It is clear that the overall spending on intelligence has blossomed to an unacceptable level in the past decade,' says Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Dana Priest reported that more than 1,200 government agencies or offices and almost 2,000 outside contractors are involved in counter-terrorism activities, producing about 50,000 intelligence reports each year, far more than the government can effectively digest. The US is running so many secret programs that James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, said during his confirmation hearings that 'only one entity in the entire universe' knows what they're all doing, and 'that's God.'"
Move over military-industrial complex... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, at least with the old military-industrial complex we got some cool hardware that we got to see at air shows and parades. Nowadays all we get is the occasional FBI surveillance device on our cars and constant news stories about entire airports being shut down because someone forgot to put their shampoo in the checked bag instead of the carry-on.
But hey, at least we're all safer now, right?
How did Ms. Feinstein decide it's unacceptable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see, what things might have happened in the last decade which demanded a growth in our intelligence spending?
Man, I can't think of *anything*. I guess that means that total spending approaching $10 Billion is completely unreasonable.
Truly scary (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to understand what any organization is actually doing (as opposed to understanding what they say they're doing), read their budget. So the fact that the people theoretically in charge of the intelligence agencies don't know how the money is being spent means that they aren't in charge at all.
There are 2 non-mutually-exclusive reasons this could happen:
- The people that are supposed to be in charge aren't doing their jobs.
- The career spies that work directly for the people in charge are hiding their activities from their superiors.
Either way, that means that it doesn't matter who gets elected next week - the spooks will continue doing whatever the heck they want with the US government's money.
GDP doubled in that time (Score:-1, Insightful)
The US GDP was around 8.6 trillion dollars in 1998 while it is around 14.6 trillion today. That is an almost doubling of the size of our economy.
So taking that into account, a tripling of intelligence spending does outpace economic growth by 50%, and that seems bad. However you also need to consider the geopolitical climate we are in now after 9/11. A 50% increase in spending does not seem outrageous when that spending is directed towards specific needs like intelligence gathering.
Re:Just NUKE the Axis of Evil !! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, we should level an American city that isn't being useful anymore.
Washington DC?
How do you know? How do you decide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Playing devil's advocate here...
We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?
B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more
C: The counterterrorism efforts have prevented such an attack
For ANY of the above choices, how do you know? I mean, REALLY know, not just guessing or trying to shout louder than the guy next to you whose opinion is different than yours?
And for future budgets, how do you decide? Reduce the budget until a major attack happens, then go slightly higher next year? Reduce the budget then just absorb major attacks when they happen? Keep it where it's at on the assumption that the spending levels are the reason there's been nothing big happening? Again, upon what do you base your decision?
In all of Slashdot's membership, there are probably a few who have the real, first-hand primary-source knowledge (or are themselves a primary source) to make these decisions based upon fact and clear, rational thought. The rest of us, myself included, are talking out of our asses because we don't know shit. I loathe and despise Feinstein (she's never met a government-power-increasing law she didn't like), but she's in a position to have at least some factual knowledge. Have we overspent? Probably. But I don't want to be the one to decide how much to cut, and what to keep, and I'm not going to pretend I'm qualified to tell the intel community how to do their jobs. (Intel(tm)? That's another matter...)
We leave it to the judgment of history whether Feinstein is qualified to do so. Myself? I DON'T KNOW.
Re:How did Ms. Feinstein decide it's unacceptable? (Score:3, Insightful)
You decide like this:
1. Increasing debt means American public, in general, is unhappy with spending more.
2. Look for area where not-my-party has increased spending.
3. Decide it's bad.
4. Bonus points: be chair of committee so that you can imply that if your party remains in power, your party can fix it.
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:3, Insightful)
"Not to mention the cost of maintaining GITMO for however long it is before the Republicans acknowledge that we have to accept at least a few detainees if we want to be rid of the rest."
Really? This is all the Republicans fault?
Even though we've had a Democrat President since January 20th, 2009 who could end GITMO with the stroke of a pen? (I might remind you also that he campaigned with the promise to do so.)
Even though the Democratic Party took over Congress in November of 2006 and could have ended it's ludicrous existence at any time?
So let me get this straight, even though the Democratic party has had total control of the United States Government, including the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, for almost two years this is somehow a REPUBLICAN issue?
You need to stop shilling for a party and start thinking for yourself. GITMO is an abomination and should be gotten rid of but to blame its continued existence solely on the Republican party is delusional.
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't we just outsource it? All our other intelligence is outsourced.
Look at the details (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see, what things might have happened in the last decade which demanded a growth in our intelligence spending?
Man, I can't think of *anything*. I guess that means that total spending approaching $10 Billion is completely unreasonable.
Look, I'm pretty right wing, but even with the two wars and Al Qaeda still trying to run ops against us, there's no excuse for the current state of our intelligence community. Do you realize just how big and bloated it is? Have you seen the Wikipedia page for the U.S. Intelligence Community [wikipedia.org]? Do you see how many different agencies there are? It seems like every single organ of the government has its own intel department, some of them very large. And many of these agencies... for example the military branches and the State Department... are often working against each other. The way Intel has grown has been monstrous and counterproductive. And it's just way too damn big. Intelligence, to be effective, cannot be too big or too expansive. So recognizing that we had so many agencies, what did we do? Cut them down? Eliminate and consolidate some of them? No, we added yet another layer of bureaucracy with the "Director of National Intelligence", the idea being that he'd be a central clearinghouse and authority for all US Intel. But guess what... we had that already. Wasn't the "Director of Central Intelligence" supposed to have that job? I mean the very nature of the, duh, Central Intelligence Agency was to be that central clearinghouse for all US intel. Again, we just added more bureaucracy.
Have a good look at that list. We should probably eliminate or consolidate two-thirds of those organizations. Why in the holy hell do we need a separate national reconnaissance office and national geospatial intel agency outside of CIA? Why does the State Department need an intel org? Just have diplomats write observational reports and forward them to CIA.
Bottom line, just like every other branch of government, intelligence has gotten too huge, expensive, and bloated to effectively do its job.
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
Therefore, I really, honestly believe that there are some really scary things happening at Gitmo with very few horrible, hardcore killers who have been giving up all sorts of useful intelligence but who cannot be tried in a civilian court because they have been endlessly tortured to obtain that information. Senator Obama made his campaign promises to close down Gitmo not knowing the secret horrors and President Obama has to backtrack because he now knows about the shit going on.
You know... I can't resist but point out that this would be like saying: Maybe Hitler knew more about the Jewish Community than we do.
And no, I don't feel like that's a Godwin. If there's illegal/immoral/uncool activity going on in Gitmo, it should be shut down. Period. Claiming that maybe he's doing it because the people there did something wrong to his family (figuratively speaking) is just sick. It points out to me (and I hope just not me) how you gloss over human rights violations because you think it benefits national security or some bullshit like that.
Re:Statistics work both ways.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that anyone could still have some useful intelligence to give up after sitting in a cell at Gitmo for 8 years is pretty ridiculous.
Re:Feinstein ... ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Feinstein ... ? (Score:3, Insightful)
The numbers you are reporting are only the NIP budgets, i.e. 43.5 billion on 2007, 49.8 billion in 2009 and 52.1 billion in 2010. The more than 50 billion in 2007 was just speculation. The >80 billion budget for 2010 fully (supposedly) discloses the total of all of the secret budgets as well.
Since the 2009 budget was approved in 2008, most of the increases happened under Bush. This does not excuse the Democrats for allowing the budget to grow even more, but the process has been entrenched for years.
The very existence of these secret budgets is a threat to what smidgen of democracy remains.
Terrorists? LOL! The US is doing itself in ... (Score:1, Insightful)
... not the boogeyman.
I've never been afraid of any so called 'terrorist'. Any action they bring is a singular event, a pimple on the ass of their target.
Nuke NY/DC/Chi/LA? Fine, we'll crush you and rebuild. That's the attitude we all should have.
Our REAL problem and decline in the world is of our OWN making. Let's see...
The Berlin wall fell, US owned the planet, no more need for global arms race, China/India was a joke at that time. Japan was our economic competition.
The US boomed for 20 years. And almost silently, Japan/Britain faded, China/EU/Russia/India rose.
Then something interesting happened in the early 2000's, the globe realized the US was a bit wonky.
Before, people just believed it was the guiding light and followed blindly. Now, they began to attempt to validate that. Turns out, there was no supernatural force in effect there. The US ju
st knew how to play to win. The globe now knows that all along, the US is simply a competitor, one to be competed with... ideas, economics, power, global citizenry.
Then they looked even deeper and found the US is stupid about playing the game and is on terrible economic footing...
Spending $600bn on 'defense', excluding Iraq/Afghanistan for 5-10 years straight... major problem.
Having $43 TRILLION in unfunded total liabilities: Debt, deficit, SocialSec, healthcare, yearly budget, bonds, etc.... major problem.
Arm twisting, shit talking and invading soverign countries on a whim, for oil, whatever the case may truly be... major problem.
Ignoring the UN and the little guys... major problem.
Religious fervor... ditto.
Incompetent legislative and executive branches... yep, ditto.
Military industrial corporate complex COMPLETELY out of control and disjoint from the true wishes of the citizenry... OOPS.
Our consumers shipping all of our cash directly to China/India, container ships full of it... bad news.
Failing to replace lost manufacturing, tech and education with new ones... duh.
Doping down the public with 200 channels of reality TV, cooking and shopping.... dorks.
Government actively gone into protection mode, snooping pervasively now because it KNOWS both it and the country are teetering... fact.
Crazy consumption of natural resources... sigh.
Anything else????
Do you all have ANY F'IN IDEA what we could have done with that $6.5 trillion [at LEAST] we blew on worthless 'defense' budget the last ten years?
That's extremely conservative, say budget was $500bn avg over 10yr, half of that was unnecessary, add in Iraq/Afghan 'wars'. black and other stupid expenditures.
The US people know that unless the US does an abrubt about face and fixes itself NOW, it's screwed.
The have so far failed to act and are still resorting to accepting fear.
So when some normal everyday pimple like Usama, or any of the above litany of things, pop up... we fall for it, hook, line and sinker.
MAJOR PROBLEM.
You win by making friends in the world, not alienating them.
The world sees $6.5 trillion of waste by an arrogant, stupid, fearful country on extremely shaky footing.
You can damn well bet they're going to take advantage of that.
I would, and I'm born and raised full blooded live here American.
At this point, I'd rather move to China. ;-)
At least that way I'll get lots of tiny Asian hotness on my tip
And my kids and grandkids will have a future.
CHANGE NOW AMERICA, OR BE DONE FOR!!!
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:3, Insightful)
"And while it is still open, you can bet that the things happening there are not the same things that were happening while W was signing the signing statements."
Oh? How do you know this to be to true? Have you been there or are you relying on the promise of a man who has already broken a promise to close the place?