CIA takes biggest share of $52.6bn intelligence spending in secret 'black budget' that also details gaps in US knowledge

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

US spending on intelligence has doubled since 9/11, with the National Security Agency and the CIA taking the biggest share, according to the top secret budget leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Details of the $52.6bn request for 2013 by America's 16 spy agencies were revealed by the Washington Post on Thursday.

The NSA has requested $10.45bn from Congress, while the CIA is asking for $14.7bn. The NSA has long been regarded as the most productive of the spy agencies, so the higher spending by the CIA is one of the biggest surprises in the four-volume, 1,452-page budget.

The Congressional Budget Justification for the National Intelligence Program, dubbed the "black budget", offers insights into new projects as well as the successes and failures of the spy agencies. It outlines the countries they have successfully infiltrated and those where they are struggling, primarily North Korea.

Ironically, in view of Snowden's revelations, part of the budget is is dedicated to stopping whistleblowers. Among the $3.7bn counterintelligence section of the budget is an item dedicated to detecting insider threats "who seeks to exploit their authorized access to sensitive information to harm US interests."

The intelligence community, pre-Snowden, had planned to investigate at least 4,000 possible insider threats this year.

The budget, a copy of which has also been seen by the Guardian, also provides tantalising details about the relationship between the NSA and the corporate sector. It describes "unique commercial partnerships" that "enable access and exploitation of international communications, and provide infrastructure to support operations".

The document contains figures for spending on the corporate sector but no definitive total. US telecom and internet companies help the NSA in gathering data, although many say they do not do so voluntarily, but only because they are obliged to by law.

One figures puts the costs of running the corporate sector programmes at about $271m. Various programs involving the corporate sector are listed, including one codenamed Blarney which has a budget request for $86.2m.

But the names of the companies involved are not included.

The document says the agencies aim to "leverage IC [intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to provide Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) authorized access to the communications of foreign governments, international organizations, terrorist organizations, and agents of foreign powers."

The budget reveals the intelligence agencies have 107,035 staff, almost one in every 25 federal workers. The wage bill is $12.3bn. On top of this, there is an additional $5bn outlay on 21,754 staff from core contractors.

The NSA requested $10.45bn, an increase of 3% on last year. The agency plans to reduce headcount by 75 in 2013, which would leave 21,575 personnel. By comparison, the CIA has 22,206 personnel and is requesting 14.7bn, down 4% on last year.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, in the preface, says the budget request is an overall decrease in spending. "This budget represents a decrease of $1.3bn, or 2.4%, below the FY [for

year] 2012 enacted level; and it reduces personnel by 1,241 positions, or 1%. The request meets the fiscal demands laid out in the Budget Control Act by setting the IC [intelligence community] on a path to reduce expenditures by $25bn for 10 years; with over $15bn of that amount saved by FY 2017," Clapper says.

He adds: "Although the budget is declining, the mission is not."

The budget justification for the NSA includes to "deliver responsive, reliable, and actionable Signals Intelligence to enable a decisive information advantage for national policymakers and warfighting component" and "to collect, process, makes sense of, and share electronically gathered information at the speed of, and within the agility provided by, the global information network."

The budget shows the US targeting predictable rivals such as Russia and China but also countries regarded as allies, such as Israel.

Pakistan, a long-time though troublesome ally, is described as "an intractable target", while counter-intelligence operations are focused against "priority targets of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel".

Huge gaps in knowledge about Iran, China and Russia are acknowledged, with North Korea identified as the most difficult to penetrate, mainly because of its relative lack of internet and other modern communications.

The intelligence agencies, according to the budget, aim to "maintain and support existing collection and exploitation capabilities, infrastructure, and operations" for internet and phone communications. Targeted communications include "fax, telex, modem, email, webmail, instant messaging, VoIP, Virtual Private Network (VPN), mobile and land-line voice, and video teleconferencing."

The document also reveals an apparent shortage of staff who are proficient in languages spoken in the regions that are the focus of much of the intelligence communities' work.

While there are almost 3,000 Spanish speakers – unsurprising, perhaps given the large Hispanic population in the US – there are just over 1,100 Arabic speakers, and tiny numbers of Pashto and Urdu speakers. There are 900 Chinese speakers, according to the document.