For a change, intelligence experts outside the U.S. government don’t have to guess how much Washington spent last year on civilian and military spying. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper agreed for the first time to publicly release figures from the National Intelligence Program, which includes spying not only by the CIA but also the military. The total amount spent in fiscal year 2010 was $80.1 billion, with civilian agencies accounting for $53.1 billion and the Department of Defense $27 billion. The complete spy budget was far more than the budgets of the Department of Homeland Security ($42.6) or the State Department and foreign operations ($48.9 billion).

 

The last time the government openly revealed the overall intelligence budget was in 1998, at which time the total was $26.7 billion.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Intelligence Spending At Record $80.1 Billion in First Disclosure of Overall Figure (by Walter Pincus, Washington Post)

Overall U.S. Intelligence Budget Tops $80 Billion (by Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times)

U.S. Spy Budget: $75 Billion (and 200,000 Employees) (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)