[Intelforum] Secrecy News -- 11/01/11

Tue Nov 1 12:40:54 EDT 2011

Format Note:  If you cannot easily read the text below, or you prefer to
receive Secrecy News in another format, please reply to this email to let
us know.

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2011, Issue No. 102
November 1, 2011

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

**     INTELLIGENCE SPENDING DECLINED IN 2011
**     PROSPECTS FADE FOR A SEPARATE INTELLIGENCE BUDGET

INTELLIGENCE SPENDING DECLINED IN 2011

For the first time in more than a decade, the total U.S. intelligence
budget declined in 2011, according to budget figures declassified and
disclosed last week.

Although the National Intelligence Program (NIP) budget increased slightly
from $53.1 in 2010 to $54.6 billion in 2011, the Military Intelligence
Program (MIP) budget dropped from $27 billion to $24 billion.  The sum of
both categories of intelligence spending thus declined from $80.1 billion
in 2010 to $78.6 billion in 2011, signaling a reversal of the steady
intelligence budget increases of the past decade.

	http://www.fas.org/irp/budget/index.html

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said last month that he
anticipated "double digit" cuts in the National Intelligence Program budget
over the next ten years.

"It will be an actual cut in funds, not a cut to projected growth," said a
congressional staffer. "Put another way, budgets in the future years will
be less than they are for FY12."

PROSPECTS FADE FOR A SEPARATE INTELLIGENCE BUDGET

The budget for the National Intelligence Program will mostly remain hidden
in the Department of Defense budget for the foreseeable future and will not
be given a separate budget line item or a separate appropriation, despite
the efforts of budget reformers and intelligence community leaders.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had advocated such a move
for years, particularly since it would have enhanced the role of the DNI.

"I would support and I've also been working [on] actually taking the
National Intelligence Program [NIP] out of the DoD budget," he said at his
July 2010 confirmation hearing.  Doing so would "serve to strengthen the
DNI's hand in managing the money in the intelligence community," he
explained.

But in a speech last month, DNI Clapper indicated that the proposed move
had been stymied.  "Ain't gonna happen," he said.

	http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2011/10/dni101711.pdf

A stand-alone budget for the National Intelligence Program would have
added clarity and integrity to the budget process.  Currently, most
intelligence spending is concealed in the Department of Defense
appropriations bill in opaque and misleading line items.  Much of the money
is not under the effective control the Secretary of Defense.  Some of it,
like the CIA budget, is not Defense Department spending at all.  The whole
arrangement is a deliberate subterfuge that is a legacy of the Cold War.

But Congress likes it that way.  The House of Representatives passed
language in the 2012 defense appropriations bill that would prohibit a
change in the status quo.

"None of the funds appropriated in this or any other Act may be used to
plan, prepare for, or otherwise take any action to undertake or implement
the separation of the National Intelligence Program budget from the
Department of Defense budget," the House bill said (HR 2219, sect. 8116).

The efforts by DNI Clapper to establish independent funding for the
National Intelligence Program have already paid dividends in increased
openness.  In 2011, the amount that was requested for the NIP for the
following year was voluntarily disclosed for the first time ever. 
Disclosure of the budget request, previously opposed by Intelligence
Community leaders, was a precondition for a separate NIP budget.

Now that a separate NIP budget is out of reach and there is no
programmatic advantage to be gained from publishing the intelligence budget
request, it remains to be seen whether or not the request for the FY2013
NIP budget will be voluntarily released by the DNI next year.

Annual disclosure of the total intelligence budget appropriation, which
for decades was a matter of fierce contention, is now utterly routine.

A new report from the Congressional Research Service reviewed "The
Intelligence Appropriations Process: Issues for Congress," October 27,
2011.

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R42061.pdf

_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

The Secrecy News Blog is at:
     http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/subscribe.html

To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/unsubscribe.html

OR email your request to saftergood at fas.org

Secrecy News is archived at:
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html

Support the FAS Project on Government Secrecy with a donation:
     http://www.fas.org/member/donate_today.html

_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood at fas.org
voice:  (202) 454-4691
twitter: @saftergood