Inside the 2013 US Intelligence "Black Budget" 271
i_want_you_to_throw_ writes "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 government's 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."
Open Source (Score:4, Interesting)
Between the CIA and the DoDIA they have over half a billion in the category "open source". Very interesting.
Oversight (Score:4, Interesting)
If we are ever going to rein in our out of control government we desperately need to have all the public scrutiny we can get. Maybe even put some penalties up, say your budget gets slashed by a billion dollars every time one of your officials gets caught lying to congress or gets caught up in a scandal.
Re:Links to classified data should be labeled (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Cool (Score:4, Interesting)
Drones. That's where the money goes. Drones are expensive. And, the facilities to operate the drones. The military industrial complex, and the components of that complex, sets their own prices. Like the no-bid contracts exposed in the Iraq war, money is no problem. Secret deals are made, complete with kickbacks and campaign donations, and the government pays whatever the contractor says to pay. The people who authorize these expenditures are part of the same group that authorizes expenditures for billion dollar aircraft. Think about that - billion dollar aircraft.
Alright - maybe I exaggerate the drone cost some, but I am pretty damned serious.
Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions [wikipedia.org]
Much of that seems to been keeping the world in a mess so it needs US help/arms and political cover/support.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
Time to pretend like the president has any actual control over any of this! ...The presidency does not exist to wield power. The presidency exists to distract attention away from the wielding of power.
I'm afraid I have to disagree. Obama is apparently a a keen supporter of intelligence spending. [defensenews.com]
Well, since Obama was personally (and unusually) involved in formulating a satellite acquisition proposal to Congress, I'd say the argument that he is a mere figurehead doesn't quite fly.
Re:Cool (Score:4, Interesting)
Though drones don't cost that much, there are other billion dollar aircraft.
After Obama won in 2008, his administration's spending plans had large increasing drone spending before he even took office.
The revolving door is another big part of how the system work: retiring colonels have lucrative employment deals lined up with the contractors before they award the contracts. And of course private stock offerings are another mechanism for congressmen. I've been out of the industry for a few years now, and it still makes my blood boil.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
This has been planned for the past 15 years now just like the Iraq war was. U.S. and Britain (primarily) won't miss their chance even though there is more evidence to counter the claim Assad used chemical weapons. They're manufacturing evidence.
The Elites need the Syrian pipeline and this is their chance to take it.
(Did I mention the U.S. and NATO have been funding the destabilization of Syria for the past four years?)
Next stop: Iran
You're close, but think bigger. Much bigger.
The global interests have decided that it's time for global change. They want the "Age of America" as a top superpower finished and over with. They want a major global power-shift.
The only way outside of natural disasters/pandemics that major and sudden global changes happen is through world war.
World War 3 is what is being staged here. Russia has already sent a fleet to the area. Both Russia and China have warned the US not to strike Syria. The US will be facing Russia, China, Iran, and much of the Middle East and others with an over-extended and exhausted US military. The US doesn't come out of that well.
The US Dollar is about to collapse. They've been running the printing presses at warp speed to maintain a rough status-quo while they make preparations. They see a war as not only the only way, but the preferred way, out of the somewhere-north-of ~$17T debt (that's admitted to), while simultaneously taking the US out of the top-global-superpower club and allowing martial law to be declared in the US and massive domestic political/societal changes made via the barrels of guns.
Hang on boys and girls.
Shit's about to get real after Obama strikes Syria.
I firmly believe it will be the "Archduke Ferdinand" moment that starts a world war and signals the end of the US as a top superpower, and the end of constitutional civil liberties as we've known them for the people in the US.
Strat