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Classified US Intel Budget Revealed Via Powerpoint
Atario writes "In a holdover from the Cold War when the number really did matter to national security, the size of the US national intelligence budget remains one of the government's most closely guarded secrets. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the highest intelligence agency in the country that oversees all federal intelligence agencies, appears to have inadvertently released the keys to that number in an unclassified PowerPoint presentation now posted on the website of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). By reverse engineering the numbers in an underlying data element embedded in the presentation, it seems that the total budget of the 16 US intelligence agencies in fiscal year 2005 was $60 billion, almost 25% higher than previously believed."
The intelligence community is so large and diverse, that it is literally quite possible that the government itself didn't know how much money was spent on "intelligence".
Not because of incompetence, corruption, waste, or secrecy - though all those are certainly elements to varying degrees - but in reality because of the wide variety of agencies and activities that fall under the guise of "intelligence".
The article itself notes, correctly:
This top line $60 billion figure is 25% above the estimated $48 billion budget for FY 08. It is quite probable that this total figure was not even known by the government until recently. Greater control and oversight of the Intelligence Community budget was a hallmark of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 that created the position of the Director of National Intelligence and gave it the mandate to get an overview of the entire amount spent on intelligence government-wide. To this end, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has recently gathered all parts of the previously fragmented Intelligence Community budget together for the first time as part of its Intelligence Resource Information System (IRIS). In the report from the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence released last Thursday, the committee praised the Office of the Director of Intelligence for creating a "single budget system called the Intelligence Resource Information System." It also recognizes their efforts in helping create what "will be used for further inquiry by the Committee's budget and audit staffs and will be a baseline that allows the Congress and DNI to derive trend data from future reports."
Earlier, lower estimates were most likely only included what fell directly under the Director of Central Intelligence and which would have omitted parts of NSA, NRO. A total Intelligence Community number, with the Intelligence Community as defined by 50 U.S.C. 401a(4), would also now include the various military intelligence services (e.g. Army Intel, Navy Intel, etc.), each with its respective weapon technology intelligence exploitation shop. A total budget would also include a large portion of the budget of the Department of Homeland Security which was previously fragment across multiple government agencies. A $60 billion government-wide Intelligence Community budget is not at all out of line with the post 9/11 organizational reality. It seems that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is just now getting a clear picture of the fragmented intelligence community budget.
When you're dealing with sixteen separate agencies, including elements from the Department of Defense, to say something like "intelligence budget" is almost meaningless. What's pure intelligence? What's national defense? What is a mix? In fact, it often comes down to what some particular task or program is "anointed" by management. Different areas get reorganized and shuffled into different organizational structures. To say nothing of the fact that the addition of DHS to the Intelligence Community was the largest government reorganization in over a half-century, since the creation of the Department of Defense and CIA by the National Security Act of 1947.
Shuffle more, and you can probably make the "intelligence" budget appear lower. But the truth is that "it seems that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is just now getting a clear picture of the fragmented intelligence community budget."
And that should be a good thing.
On a different note, revealing classified or sensitive information by improper handling of technology solutions is a perennial problem, and it still floors me that the vetting and release process doesn't properly capture things like this (though they've gotten MUCH better).
No no, your all wrong. They funded SG project with all the money they siphoned from NASA when they faked the moon landings. Any REAL nerd would know that...
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
I sort of feel like this is telling us stuff we ought to know anyway.
Funnily enough for the first few seconds I read it as Intel computers, bit of a bad choice of abbreviation for a Tech website, next story will be "EU bans AMD", referring to acid mine drainage no doubt.
My little Linux and tech blog
"...a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time."
Only $60B ???!!!
Personally, I'd rather see us spend $120B on intelligence and get it RIGHT than only spend $60B and get it WRONG and end up going to war based on that faulty intelligence at a price tag of $82B up-front and more annually!
Politics and loss of life aside, it's just better economics!
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
Whenever the government gives us information, we assume deception. Whenever we "discover" information, we assume truth. Perhaps I'm the only individual who realizes this, and no one would ever betray the public's trust by purposefully planting misinformation which would lead the public to believe they have uncovered truth. Or perhaps not.
On Slide #6, "Megatrends" and how that the "old hotness" for "non-core functions" was "in-house" but now that we are in the 21st century, the new hotness is "OUTSOURCED"! I wonder if they outsourced the making of this presentation :) Also, if you note the "Work Environemnt" row, you will see the transition from "Dedicated" to "Virtual, Telecommuting" which means more DIA laptops will be floating around, getting ripped off, and exposing the DIA to even more leaks. With this DIA strategy and demonstrated incomptence, China's expanded cyberweapons programs will have the information in hand before the President/Congress get to hear it in their briefings. Security is an illusion.
Because government people are still people and they, and you and I -- and everyone -- are stupid.... I try to be careful in my old age anymore with judging, blaming and thinking others are stupider. I've got waaay too many screwups on my record to talk. It is simply a matter of time before you (or me) has our next big stupid moment in finances, love, work, etc. Just because they work for the government doesn't mean they are different or better or worse. Probably one of the best arguments against vast and complex conspiracies is simply that: that people in any conspiracy are just stupid people like me and you.
To quote Bullet Tooth Tony:
"Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity...."
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Bush may do alot of things wrong... but are you really trying to blame him for some low level moron releasing a powerpoint presentation? This is not an offense that requires big heads to roll. This is a problem that requires (possibly) one or two grunts to be fired. Shit happens, you can't stop every mistake. The important thing is how it's handled and frankly, I don't think it SHOULD be a matter of public knowledge how this is handled. Maybe the guy gets a mark on his record, maybe he gets fired, maybe they change the clearing policy. Either way... please drop your Bush is responsible for every little thing that goes wrong. Ultimately yes, the buck stops at his door, but lets be realistic... I'm sure someone is going to get hammered for this... lets make sure it's the person that ACTUALLY screwed up.
From TFA, it soundly like somebody forgot to strip the hidden data.
This right here is proof as far as I'm concerned that anybody who seriously thinks that the US Government staged 9/11, shot down TWA 800, killed JFK or faked the Apollo landings really needs to have their head examined.
Seriously. This seems like the third or forth story along these lines in as many weeks. Recall the Coalition Provisional Authority leaks because somebody couldn't disable the previous versions feature of word. And now this?
I'm sorry, but our Government is too incompetent to manage any of the things above. I kinda wish they were in a way... then maybe Iraq wouldn't be such a mess, Katrina would have been handled correctly and 9/11 wouldn't have happened.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I have always been saying that MS products have no place in government
Yes, because this is all Microsoft's fault. It has nothing to do whatsoever with the incompetence of the person/people who created this Powerpoint show and left classified data in the version that was released to the public.
If only the Feds were using an open-source solution. An open-source slide show program would have been smart enough to realize that they left classified data in the document and would have alerted them prior to the document being released to the public.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You don't actually think they spend $20,000.00 on a hammer, $30,000.00 on a toilet seat do you?
Well, yeah, they actually probably do, but only in no-bid contracts awarded to whatever company the Director of the Federal agency requesting the contract worked for previously. ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No, while I'd usually agree with you, this is a glaring example of why more people in government should use MS products. Can we get PowerPoint installed on more desktops in the Justice Department?
That's funny, because I can open up PowerPoint and select "Remove Hidden Data", which coincidentally enough is a feature I pulled from Microsoft's site. It does a fantastic job of removing all that hidden data, too. This is pure user error in not using this function; it has absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft versus OSS.
The only people this was a secret from was the American people.
It's important to remember that $60BN doesn't spend itself, and it doesn't spend itself in small numbers. A whole lot of Americans knew that a whole lot of money was being spent on (essentially) nothing. It's also important to remember that this money mostly goes to defense contractors, and most of that goes to the upper management. Make no mistake: the rich don't spend in proportion to their income. They hoard. This money is being turned into silver spoons for a whole lot of terrorism-profiteers.
Fun trivia: $60BN is enough to give *every* child and adult in the US $200; about half a week's wages for people working minimum wage (before the roughly 1/3rd that goes to taxes, of course.)
It's enough to employ (are you sitting down?) one point two MILLION people in $50k/year jobs.
Now sit there and explain to me why New Orleans is still a disaster area, why 10 million kids in the US don't get enough food to eat, ~1% of the population (3.5 million people) is homeless (third of those are children), and why poor residents living in New England have their federal assistance for home heating cut.
This nation's spending priorities are so out of whack it is abhorrent.
Please help metamoderate.
News organizations constantly report million and billion dollar budgets without providing context. On the radio and on TV, for example, the announcer usually takes exceptional care to pause, then spit out the word as if it's a death-defying number: billion.
No one even *knows* what a billion is. Can you conceptualize one billion things? I don't know what a billion is. I can't even fathom it. Anyone who tells you they can is lying. All we know is that a billion is more than a million and less than a trillion.
So, for context, that $60,000,000,000 dollars that was mentioned was for the USA 2005 budget, which was about $2,400,000,000,000.* That's only 2.5% of the budget, and if you're a citizen of the US you'd better hope and pray that your country is spending at least 2% of the budget on intelligence in these times.
* See, you had to think about it for a second to figure out how big that number is. (In newsspeak, that's $2.4 TRILLLLLIIIIONNNN)
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
This right here is proof as far as I'm concerned that anybody who seriously thinks that the US Government staged 9/11, shot down TWA 800, killed JFK or faked the Apollo landings really needs to have their head examined.
Except that the "mistakes" like these are done by the government, so that you would think exactly that. You have just fallen into their trap!
Not really, but your logic makes about as much sense as the conspiracy theorists. Just because one idiot who works for the government screwed up, doesn't imply anything about other people, and other agencies? Why would it? Just like saying someone working for one company screwed up, so all companies must be incompetent, and have been for 40 years? Do you not think that sounds screwy as well?
Well, if you were behind the evil conspiracy revealed in that book, wouldn't something like this be the ideal way to defuse the book and its accusations?
Duh
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Can you conceptualize one billion things?
A billion things is a thousand millions of things. The decimal orders of magnitude, scientific notation and other notation systems have been developed precisely to represent such large numbers. This is sufficient to allow for some pretty significant conclusions to be drawn about a billion in relation to other numbers.
When you say conceptualize, I think you mean count.
illegitimii non ingravare
This right here is proof as far as I'm concerned that anybody who seriously thinks that the US Government staged 9/11, shot down TWA 800, killed JFK or faked the Apollo landings really needs to have their head examined.
Right... because some office worker is dumb (or simply didn't know the need to strip the data), it then follows that EVERYONE in the government is just as dumb / incompetent.
Very good logic there.
Depends what you mean - MS Office and OpenOffice have some pretty advanced features like spreadsheet formulas, cross references, tracking revisions of documents, using special characters, breaks and nonbreaking spaces, and integrating with external data (eg mail merge). I don't think it's easy at all.
When I worked for the USAF during the cold war, spying on americans was illegal. Evidently, those in charge now believe that spying on Americans is acceptable now.
Currently, the US intelligence infrastructure seems to have new missions.
It gathers intelligence from and about the American people.
It makes justifications for actions of the current administration.
I thinking that we should a lot more information about the amount of our taxes that are being used for these purposes, don't you?
The Internet has no garbage collection