Report: U. S. spying is costly, often ineffective

‘ Washington Post’ obtains budget from Snowden

WASHINGTON The U. S. government will spend $ 52 billion on intelligence programs this year, but it often fails to provide the president with information needed to protect national security, according to a report in The Washington Post.

The Post’s story is based on the intelligence community’s secret budget, which it obtained from Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency ( NSA) contractor who has leaked information on the na- tion’s most secretive spy agencies.

The Post’s disclosures could cause “significant” damage to U. S. national security interests, said Paul Pillar, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and former top official at the CIA.

U. S. adversaries now know they need to “erect fences” to protect against cyberattacks, they may help “insider threats” escape the United States before they can be captured, and countries such as Iran and North Korea have a “road map” on how to avoid American spying, Pillar said.

“I see significant potential for damage in what the Post decided to publish,” said Pillar, who also teaches at Georgetown University. “No doubt they withheld much else that would have been damaging.”

“The Post is withholding some information after consultation with U. S. officials who expressed concerns about the risk to intelligence sources and methods,” the story said. “Sensi- tive details are so pervasive in the documents that The Post is publishing only summary tables and charts online.”

Overall spending on intelligence budgets has been made public for years, but the details of the spending plan have been a closely held secret.

The budget discloses “blind spots” for the spy agencies that include some of the top national security concerns.

Among the highlights of the budget, according to the Post:

uThe CIA and NSA have launched offensive cyberoperations to hack into foreign computer networks to steal secrets and commit sabotage. USA TODAY has reported on the military’s efforts to develop offensive cyber abilities, including the capability to knock off an adversary’s computer networks.

uThe CIA is the intelligence community’s top dog, spending $ 14 billion a year, half again as much as the National Security Agency.

uThe NSA planned to investigate 4,000 “insider threats” in which one of the agency’s own, like Snowden, divulged secrets.

2008 PHOTO BY SAUL LOEB, AFP/ GETTY IMAGES The lobby of the Langley, Va., headquarters of the CIA, which The Washington Post reported has a budget of $ 14 billion a year.

AP Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.