Published time: August 29, 2013 20:41
Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has leaked a new top-secret document that for the first time ever publically discloses how the United States spends tens of billions of dollars annually on clandestine spy programs.
The Washington Post revealed the so-called “black budget” on
Thursday and reports that $52.6 billion was set aside for
operations in fiscal year 2013.
Among the biggest priorities for the intelligence community, the
Post reported, are “offensive cyber operations” and
research devoted to decoding encrypted communications.
The Post’s Barton Gellman, Greg Miller and Julie Tate wrote
Thursday that Mr. Snowden, the 30-year-old former Booz Allen
Hamilton staffer who started leaking classified national security
documents earlier this year, provided the paper with the
never-before published summary of this year’s budget.
But although the Post reported that the document is 178 pages in
length, they have at the same time elected to only make available
one-tenth of the content, citing “concerns about the risk to
intelligence sources and methods” brought up by US officials
who were notified ahead of publication.
FY 2013 Congressional Budget
Justification, provided by Washington Post
“Sensitive details are so pervasive in the documents that the
Post is publishing only summary tables and charts online,”
the paper wrote in the article that accompanies the 17-page
selection. The document is labeled “top secret” and warns
that it is only to be accessed by US citizens with the proper
security clearance.
Shrouded in secrecy, the amount that Uncle Sam sets aside for
sensitive operations each year is not allowed to be published for
eyes outside of the intelligence community and only for a portion
of those briefed on its operations. The latest Snowden leak
reveals that at $52.6 billion, the government is actually handing
out 2.3 percent fewer than it did in fiscal year 2012 and,
additionally, sequestration has caused the agencies to shed 1,241
positions, or around one percent of its workforce. Despite these
setbacks, though, the budget, described by the Post as “a
bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been
subject to public scrutiny,” includes billions of dollars
towards operations that may not be funded if debated in the
press.
In comparison, the Department of Homeland Security was allocated
$55.4 billion in FY2013. The black budget comes in at a figure
larger than the sums received by the Department of the Interior,
the Department of Commerce and NASA this year combined.
Yet despite the hefty cost of operating the secret operations
amid sequestration, excerpts from the summary leaked by Snowden
show that the US still has significant setbacks keeping it from
achieving its intelligence goals.
For one, the disclosure in and of itself demonstrates the
intelligence community’s inability to prevent sensitive
information from being leaked.
In FY2013, the budget summary says the government invested in
ramping-up its counterintelligence operations at a time when
budget cuts led to reductions in the community’s workforce,
operations, long-term investments, infrastructure and information
technology sectors.
“To further safeguard our classified networks, we continue to
strengthen insider threat detection capabilities across the
community,” the document reads.
As the Post reported, however, the implementation of any insider
threat program came too late to catch Snowden, who began mining
for documents while employed as a contractor for Dell Inc in May
2012. Snowden began work at Dell in 2009 and it is not
immediately clear what security clearance he had before or during
the time he started scouring networks for documents, but the Post
article claims “a major counterintelligence initiative”
budgeted for FY2012 saw its own resources slashed after an
“all-hands, emergency response” was ordered to deal with
the disclosures then being published by the anti-secrecy group
WikiLeaks.
The Post cites an excerpt from this year’s budget where it’s
noted that programs are being implemented to “mitigate insider
threats by trusted insiders who seek to exploit their authorized
access to sensitive information to harm US interests.”
Although Snowden’s disclosures – including this one – demonstrate
that the $3.64 billion set aside to “integrate
counterintelligence” in FY2013 could have likely benefited the
intelligence community had it come sooner.
According to one graph included in the document, roughly 39
percent of this year’s black budget was set aside for providing
strategic intelligence and warning, with around one-third going
towards combating violent extremism. Counter weapons
proliferation received 13 percent of total funding, and enhancing
cybersecurity and integrating counterintelligence were allotted 8
and 7 percent, respectively.
More broadly speaking, Central Intelligence Agency programs were
awarded 28 percent of the total $52.6 billion – or around $14.7
billion, with the Consolidated Cryptologic Program receiving the
second most funding with roughly $11 billion. The Post reports
that that program includes the National Security Agency on the
division of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines that involves
conducting surveillance and breaking and decrypting codes.
“We are bolstering our support for clandestine SIGINT [signals
intelligence] capabilities to collect against high priority
targets, including foreign leadership targets,” DNI Clapper
says in the summary. “Also, we are investing in groundbreaking
cryptanalytic capabilities to defeat adversarial cryptography and
exploit Internet traffic.”
Approached by the Post for comment before Thursday’s publication,
Clapper said, “The United States has made a considerable
investment in the Intelligence Community since the terror attacks
of 9/11, a time which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
Arab Spring, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
technology, and asymmetric threats in such areas as
cyber-warfare.”
“Our budgets are classified as they could provide insight for
foreign intelligence services to discern our top national
priorities, capabilities and sources and methods that allow us to
obtain information to counter threats,” he added.
Through previous disclosures attributed to Snowden, though, the
American public has learned that the NSA programs launched to
collect foreign intelligence has allowed the federal government
to sweep up personal and private information pertaining to
Americans who are guaranteed constitution protection from such
surveillance.
At the same time, the targeting of foreign persons of interest
has apparently suffered significant losses as of late with
regards to the intelligence community’s aspirations. The document
claims that counterintelligence initiatives are being ramped up
against “key targets” including China, Russia, Iran,
Israel, Pakistan and Cuba, but the Post reported that five
“critical” gaps currently exist keeping the US from
collecting as much as it would like on North Korea.
“Analysts know virtually nothing about the intentions of North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un,” the Post reported, adding that
those critical gaps have given America the inability to properly
assess the nuclear and missile programs masterminded from
Pyongyang.
Elsewhere, though, the reporters say that other parts of the
budget suggest North Korea is anything but an active target.
“A section on North Korea indicates that the United States has
all but surrounded the nuclear-armed country with surveillance
platforms,” the paper reported. “There are distant ground
sensors to monitor seismic activity and scan the country for
signs that might point to construction of new nuclear sites. US
agencies seek to capture photos, air samples and infrared imagery
‘around the clock.’”
And for those nations of upmost interest, the intelligence
community is investing heavily on “offensive cyber
operations” launched by the CIA and NSA to hack foreign
competitors, steal data and sabotage servers. The Post neglected
to publish any excerpts from the summary detailing to what degree
the intelligence community has been engaging in these strategic
hacks, saying only that recently launched efforts are more
“aggressive” than before. As RT has reported extensively
in the past, the US government has been accused of being the
biggest hackers on the planet at a time when,
domestically, so-called cybercriminals are prosecuted at an
alarming rate for comparably less harsh crimes.
Last week, RT reported that hacker and political activist Jeremy
Hammond of Chicago, Illinois will soon be sentenced for his
admitted role in aiding with malicious campaigns targeting the
California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, computer
servers used by various New York State police chiefs and a
company that provides munitions used to gas protesters in Egypt,
among others. According to a letter written by Hammond from a New York City jail
cell, the US government used a confidential informant within the
hacktivist groups Anonymous and LulzSec “to facilitate the
hacking of targets of the government’s choosing — including
numerous websites belonging to foreign governments.”
“Why was the United States using us to infiltrate the private
networks of foreign governments? What are they doing with the
information we stole? And will anyone in our government ever be
held accountable for these crimes?” Hammond asked.
Republished from: RT