Peering into the Black Budget

A week's vacation in the Napa Valley has left me sluggish and weary, which isn't surprising considering the amount of food and wine consumed during our trip. I hope to post photos and an essay on the region and some of our discoveries soon, but in the meantime, those interested in politics and the shadowy side of the government may be interested in the research paper I handed in a few weeks back for my Government Documents course. Free to pursue nearly any line of inquiry related to government documents, I chose to investigate the most egregious example of government non-accountability - the so-called "Black Budget" for covert operations. I did my best to take what resembles an X-Files episode and sculpt it into something resembling a higher education essay. At the very least, I think the topic is fascinating. Peruse, skim, ignore - it's a lengthy essay. I'll get to the wine later.

Shedding Light on the Black Budget: How Intelligence Spending is Blocked from the American Taxpayer

Abstract

While the vast majority of information related to United States government spending and legislation is available to the general populace through a variety of print and online sources, details relating to the government’s intelligence community – the so-called ‘black budget’ – have been closed to public eyes since the creation of the modern intelligence community in the late 1940s. While the need for secrecy in certain matters is beyond dispute, the wisdom of refusing any accountability for massive budgetary needs seems questionable. As a result of strict classification standards, information regarding the black budget has tended to be pieced together through a variety of sources, both legitimate and shadowy. This paper will take the position that a strict adherence to the Constitution would demand less secrecy in matters involving the federal budget and taxpayer money, and argues that any move towards greater transparency would help contribute to a more open and responsible relationship between government and the governed.

Introduction
Concealed beneath mundane reports, within classified documents and alongside official releases lies a hidden record of the massive amounts of spending dedicated each year to classified materials relating to the nation’s intelligence community. This poorly-kept secret, dubbed the black budget, remains inaccessible to the vast majority of Americans in any format, resulting in a substantial knowledge gap and lack of accountability in an area of major importance to both American security and technological ability. There is no disputing the need for certain materials to remain classified, but the question of how to balance this security need with the public’s right to know has been growing since the 1970s. How might such sensitive information be made available? Is it best to leave the investigations to private researchers and Internet obsessionists, or might greater accuracy and accountability result from an official recognition of the importance of transparency? Has the need for total secrecy in all matters of the intelligence budget been overstated? And does classifying such information negatively impact the sciences, technology and democracy? This paper will take the position that “black budgets” conflict with the Constitution, and will put forth the argument that politicians and citizens deserve to hold the government accountable for the taxpayer-subsidized funds used to support classified programs. The dollar amounts should be freely searchable to any and all, not relegated to dusty corners of the Internet or specialized discussion groups. While specific information should remain classified, non-line item disclosure would initiate dialogue, curb waste and abuse, adhere to constitutional measures and help ward off misinformation and conspiracy rumors.

Defining the Black Budget
A “black budget” refers to any budget collected in secret, but the majority involve military or intelligence information. Specifically, the Black Budget of the United States refers to military and intelligence spending that remains classified and closed to public scrutiny. Phil Patton defines the black budget as “the government’s illusory and tangled accounting of what it spends on intelligence gathering, covert operations, and – less noticeably – secret military research and weapons programs” (Patton, 1995). While the Constitution calls for full and regular explanations of all expenses, Richard Best and Elizabeth Bazan note “the courts have regarded the Congress as having the power to define the meaning” of the Constitutional disclosure mandate, and that since the late 1940s and the onset of modern U.S. intelligence operations, both Congress and the executive Branch have “shared a determination to keep intelligence spending secret” (Best & Bazan, 2007). This tendency towards secrecy is very much the product of the Cold War and the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency – as David Kopel of the Cato Institute points out, both Congress and the President “adhered to the Constitution” even during World War II by making public the entire budget for the CIA’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (and adds that countries such as Great Britain, Canada and Israel make their intelligence budgets public to this day) (Kopel, 1997).


It is important to note that the “intelligence budget” is not simply the budget for the CIA. The black budget actually encompasses a wide variety of different agencies scattered across multiple sections of the federal government. In their report to Congress on intelligence spending and public disclosure, Best and Bazan stress that the intelligence community must not be thought of as “a monolithic organization,” but rather a “grouping of governmental entities” involved in disparate activities like analysis, intelligence collection and dissemination. Many of the members of this community, then, belong to agencies that are not themselves conjoined with the larger intelligence community. This complexity in structure helps explain the difficulty in precisely detailing distinctions between intelligence spending and non-intelligence spending (Best & Bazan, 2007). Nevertheless, individuals have managed to break intelligence spending into theoretical brackets. Journalist and author Tim Weiner asserted in 1987 that “at least half” of the black budget “funds the CIA, the global listening posts of the National Security Agency, and the super-secret satellites of the National Reconnaissance Office” (Weiner, 1987). A full listing of all government entities involved with the intelligence budget runs to thirteen agencies and departments – the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the intelligence wings of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Coast Guard, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Energy, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) (Best & Bazan, 2007). Of the above agencies listed, only small aspects of individual intelligence budgets have been made publicly available, such as CIA retirement and disability costs and the INR’s budget estimates.

Leaks, Educated Guesses and Statistical Oddities
Through a combination of accidental leaks and creative research, an unofficial account of black budget details and spending has been compiled and disseminated, although never confirmed by the government. Weiner writes of black programs within the budget being made up of “more than 100,000 compartments, each with a specific codeword,” noting that individuals with the codeword for one single component will not have access to information concerning a black program residing within a different component (Weiner, 1987). At the time, Weiner estimated nearly 50 members of Congress possessed knowledge (“bits and pieces”) on specific programs, with only a handful of individuals having any broader access to the wider black budget. The relative handful of leaks or comments that have slipped out over the years have been enough to spur researchers and enthusiasts into offering estimates. Phil Patton cites an August 1994 internal Pentagon memo that accidentally leaked, revealing the numbers for such entities as the Central Imagery Office’s spy-satellite division ($122 million per year), the Defense Intelligence Agency ($621 million per year) and the National Security Agency ($3.5 billion per year) (Patton, 1995). A similar disclosure came in October of 2005, when Mary M. Graham, Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection, gave a speech in San Antonio, Texas, and accidentally noted the annual intelligence budget was $44 billion (Plumer, 2005).


However, much of the estimates and research on the specifics of the black budget have resulted from painstaking mathematical exercises and the careful parsing of released data. Often, blank spaces, code words, meaningless descriptions and nonsensical numbers mask specific classified programs and their appropriate funding. Some documents withhold any type of description – “Program Element 0603891c” from the upcoming 2009 budget, will receive $196 million, yet nothing specifies what the project is or does (Broad, 2008). Other government documents utilize creative writing techniques that essentially re-name established entities, such as the “Virginia Procurement Office” (actually the CIA) or the “Maryland Procurement Office” (the National Security Agency) (Patton, 1995). Patton also details such strategies as phony line items being located within any code name involving the characters r1 and p1, while Noah Shachtman highlights a National Security Agency “Special Program” with a line item that is nothing more nor less than a “string of zeroes” (Shachtman, 2009). At times, the efforts at remaining secretive stretch credulity – one section of the 2008 defense budget, a $715 billion estimate, features a complete lack of any numerical symbols and instead utilizes short descriptive sentences, such as, “Robust funding of the intelligence community”. Other items may be deciphered only through knowledge of government directives and program numbering. Program 207248F, for example, is deciphered by Patton as an operational (that is, working unit rather than research project), tactical (not strategic) Air Force project, specifically “people flying captured or purchased foreign planes in the desert north of Las Vegas,” with a fiscal 1995 budget of $118 million (Patton, 1995).

The Murky World of the Curious
Exploring black budget details means entering a murky world of enthusiasts and naysayers, conspiracy theorists and Internet hacks. Countless blogs, listservs and chat rooms buzz with breathless and often wildly inaccurate data on classified information and CIA programs, at times resembling the discussions revolving around 9/11 conspiracy outrages and Project Blue Book studies. As Patton notes, “some of these investigators are merely curious” while “some are ideologically opposed to black budgeting” (Patton, 1995). Determining the validity or accuracy of certain black budget findings can be difficult – one particularly well-written and fully sourced essay on the Obama administration’s black budget figures veers unexpectedly into a discussion of extraterrestrial life. While such offerings may be amusing, there is no denying their proliferation on the Internet or the way they dominate simple or even complex keyword searches conducted on major search engines.


Yet smaller numbers of serious, dedicated and even professional investigators, sometimes dubbed “trackers,” have contributed much in the way of hard data and rather conclusive findings. Some of the major figures on this front include Paul McGinnis, Steve Douglass and Steve Aftergood, the latter a writer for the public-interest group Federation of American Scientists. These private citizens have spent countless hours familiarizing themselves with the labyrinthine world of government documents and have learned to “read between the lines,” decipher codes and obfuscatory language, and utilize Congressional and Department of Defense documents to construct their own version of the black budget (Patton, 1995). In addition, specific groups and organizations dedicated to researching, releasing and discussing matters related to the classified budget have contributed much to the small body of literature on the matter. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (a private Washington, DC-based group) and the aforementioned Federation of American Scientists (formed in 1945 from the remnants of the Manhattan Project and concerned with national security policies) publish updates on the Pentagon’s classified budget and demand greater governmental transparency (Broad, 2008). These are not conspiracy theorists or wild-eyed bloggers, but concerned watchdog organizations that, nevertheless, find themselves operating on the sidelines of official government policy and oversight.


One yearns for official statements and studies, and there have been some signs of greater transparency over the past fifteen years, although the majority of these were one-time affairs. Melvin Goodman highlights Former Senator Daniel Moynihan’s commission on secrecy in 1995 and 1996, which concluded “the American public both needs and has a right to a full accounting of the history of U.S. covert operations”(Goodman, 2001). The Aspin-Brown Commission from the same period, directed by Congress to consider the changing nature of intelligence and budget issues, expressed doubt that any foreign government would be able to construct meaningful information simply by observing yearly budget totals, and made the recommendation that line items within the black budget remain classified while a “statement and account of the total budget” be made public (Kopel, 1997). Earlier calls for disclosure came in 1991 and 1992, in which legislation had been drafted calling for the “aggregate amount requested and authorized for, and spent on, intelligence and intelligence-related activities” to be made available to the public, although both the House and Senate later voted not to require such a measure (Best & Bazan, 2007).


To this date, 1997 and 1998 are the only fiscal years for which total figures of intelligence and intelligence-related spending was officially made public, under CIA Director George Tenet. The details were kept brief - Lee Strickland, an information officer, offered a one-sentence legal statement, noting, “In response to the referenced Freedom of Information Act request, the total budget appropriation for intelligence for fiscal year 1997 is $26.6 billion” (L.A. Times, 1997). There was no breakdown of specific uses, or “subsidiary information,” for the funds, and Tenet added that any disclosure of future budgetary amounts “will be considered only after determining whether such disclosures could cause harm to the national security by showing trends over time” (Best & Bazan, 2007). Tenet released one subsequent intelligence budget amount, for FY 1998 ($26.7 billion), and abruptly stopped the practice the following year, with no disclosures taking place since.

Specific Analysis
Utilizing both these official and unofficial figures, one can begin to piece together the totality of the black budget and its numerous individual parts. The Federation of American Scientists (the filers of the above-noted FOIA request) used the official statement to construct “approximate breakdowns” of intelligence budget use. They claimed tactical military intelligence accounted for $10 billion, the construction and operation of spy satellite technology (courtesy of the National Reconnaissance Office) accounted for $6 billion, electronic eavesdropping and decoding operations through the National Security Agency received $4 billion, and the CIA proper accounted for $3 billion, with the rest “divided among a variety of intelligence analysis agencies, including the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (L.A. Times, 1997). Tim Weiner noted in 1987 that the Air Force accounted for the highest percentage of classified spending, with more than one third of the Air Force’s research, development and procurement budget being hidden – a sum representing $17 billion (Weiner, 1987). This trend has continued, as noted in the FY 2008 and FY 2009 Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments classified budget update. Steven Kosiak of the CSBA notes the Air Force’s budget request now accounts for over three-quarters of the total classified acquisition funding of the Department of Defense. The domination by this particular military organization reflects the fact that Air Force acquisition budgets contribute funds to numerous intelligence agencies (including the CIA, NRO and NSA), and that responsibilities for so-called “C-31 functions” – what Kosiak dubs “command, control, communications and intelligence” – fall under Air Force control (Kosiak, 2008). Further examination of the CSBA document reveals that black programs for FY 2009 accounted for $34 billion, nearly 20% of total Department of Defense acquisition funding, making 2009’s request the “second highest level” for classified programs since 1987. The report adds that the black budget has more than doubled in real terms since the post-Cold War low of 1995, and increased in real terms by 115% (Kosiak, 2008). Looked at another way, the classified budget currently represents a larger sum than the National Science Foundation, NASA and Food and Drug Administration budgets put together (Broad, 2008).

Benefits, Discoveries and Failures
Calls for greater transparency and accountability in government tend to focus equally on the amount and usage of budgetary finances. If one can piece together the numerical qualities of the black budget, what of the projects, experiments and results undertaken within these classified programs? What have been some of the more notable successes and failures of this taxpayer-supported secret community? Paul McGinnis claims black projects are often twinned with “white” projects, such as the 1986 Orient Express super-plane program, “announced publicly with great fanfare by Ronald Reagan” but also assumed to have been a partial cover for “black research into a hypersonic reconnaissance craft” (Patton, 1995). In the late 1980s, Tim Weiner detailed multiple examples of black programs, including the neutron bomb, the Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), the Milstar satellite program, 155 mm nuclear shells and advanced cruise missile prototypes (Weiner, 1987). In addition, CSBA notes the B-2 stealth bomber and the F-117 stealth fighter were black projects in both development and production stages (Kosiak, 2008).


Along with such ostensible successes come numerous failures. Some failed due to exorbitant costs, such as the abandoned A-12 Avenger II aircraft project. Begun in 1983 and closed in 1991, the A-12 project ran up estimated costs of $3 billion and never progressed beyond mockups (Aftergood, 1992). Others have produced mixed results, such as the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, classified from 1967 until the early 1990s, in which dolphins and other marine mammals were trained for possible military use. And some examples are simply bizarre, such as the National Reconnaissance Office using the black budget “to hide from Congress the cost and ownership of a $300 million office building, even though the structure was plainly visible from Route 28 west of Washington, DC” (Patton, 1995). Black budget status of certain programs may also hinder progress. Tim Weiner highlights the Stealth bomber as a key example of this, in which Pentagon officials found themselves unable to “sing the praises” of the top-secret aircraft or deny reports that “advances in over-the-horizon radar technology” had already rendered the new aircraft outdated. Weiner adds that, even in the late 1980s, when books and model Stealth bombers could be purchased by any individual, the Pentagon still officially denied the existence of Stealth aircraft to a House committee (Weiner, 1987).


Along with the likelihood of waste and excessive spending, lack of oversight also opens the door to abusive practices and fraud. Among the many crimes of former California representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham was his tendency to pay off bribes by maneuvering earmarked defense contractor projects into the black budget, possibly upwards of $80 million total. A Business Week investigation noted that any legislator “with access to the classified portion of the bill can earmark spending for favored projects and technologies,” although they added that “secret earmarks” no doubt make up a small share of the entire $27.3 billion spent on earmarks and pet projects (Javers, 2006).

Arguments, Both Pro and Con
Much of the above information must be assembled piecemeal – the average citizen cannot perform a basic government publications search and expect anything resembling a unified and validated single source of information. Despite hints, estimates and accidental leaks, the black budget remains unknown and unspecified, especially to ordinary taxpayers. Should such limitations be in place to protect national security? Or does this method of obfuscation only lead to further inaccuracies and contribute to greater dissemination of faulty data? The CRS Report for Congress notes that since the 1970s, various pro and con arguments have been made for declassification, and the pro-disclosure arguments have tended to be framed along two related lines of reasoning. Namely, either constitutional requirements for “full reports of government expenditures” forces one to release classified budget figures, or the need for greater “open political discourse” and accountability to the American taxpayer requires full disclosure (Best & Bazan, 2007). Opponents of disclosure tend to warn of security breaches and the danger of releasing helpful data to enemy states or individuals.


There is more than a hint of populist anger in many of the arguments made in favor of full disclosure. “The list of odd numbers and funny words that constitute the [black budget],” writes Phil Patton, “stands for something more: a mountain of information that belongs to the American taxpayer” (Patton, 1995). Proponents of both classification and declassification often point to a 1974 Supreme Court case, United States V. Richardson, in which a citizen challenged the status of the classified budget and demanded a “line-item disclosure of the entire CIA budget”. The suit was dismissed by a vote of 5 to 4, yet the justices failed to address whether or not the classification of the intelligence budget violated constitutional mandate. Rather, the Court rejected the suit on the grounds that the aggrieved “had no legal standing” in the matter, as he was not specifically challenging the appropriations act nor alleging any kind of specified Congressional violation – the notion being that taxpayers could not use the federal courts to complain about the federal system (Kopel, 1997). Sen. Richard Shelby singled out this decision in the summer of 1997 during Senate debates on disclosures, adding that “disclosure of the total intelligence budget” might result in “political pressure to reduce the budget” (Kopel, 1997). Leaving aside the question of why pressure to reduce such a budget would automatically be an unwelcome development, one must also note that United States v. Richardson did not in any way settle the matter of the constitutionality of the black budget. Kopel points out that only Justice William O. Douglass addressed the matter of Constitutional mandate in the case. In his dissent, he framed the question of accountability in distinctly democratic terms, writing, “The public cannot intelligently know how to exercise the franchise unless it has a basic knowledge concerning at least the generality of the accounts under every head of government” (Kopel, 1997).


Yet the most compelling case for the declassification of the black budget is Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution. Continually cited by concerned parties, the clause reads, “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time” (Best & Bazan, 2007). The clause seems to mandate that Congress account for public funds collected and spent, with no exceptions. While much attention has been given over to parsing the clause itself and the debates on the matter at the Constitutional Convention, the debates seemed to have centered more on the “timing and scope” of the clause “rather than the fact of that obligation,” suggesting that the wholesale secrecy of the black budget represents a rather blatant violation of the Constitution.

The Costs of Secrecy
Maintaining the black budget comes with a price – both financial and moral. Estimates on the actual costs of keeping the budget classified run anywhere from $2.2 billion (a mid-90’s General Accounting Office estimate) to $13.8 billion (a 1989 Department of Defense estimate). Others have raised the possibility that declassifying the black budget might actually cost more than maintaining classification, a claim Prof. Warren Kimball disputes. Deeming the argument a “red herring,” he insists that “accountability and credibility are a price that has to be paid,” adding that such costs would be minimal “compared to the ever-increasing drain on resources created by the growing mountain of classified material that has to be protected” (Kimball, 2001). One might also question whether the funding required for massive black projects tends to siphon off money intended for what Weiner dubs the mundane items necessary for maintaining security – “boots, bullets and training” (Weiner, 1987).


But what of the non-financial costs of the black budget, such as the impact on research and scientific progress? Steven Aftergood claims, “secrecy has prevented huge sectors of the nation’s technology base from being applied to the commercial market….[and] has also hindered scientific progress on issues crucial to the world’s health” (Aftergood, 1992). And what of the possibility that security itself is being compromised through the inability of intelligence networks to adapt and change? While any initial call for government secrecy generally lies in combating threats – the belief that disclosure might harm national security interests – analysts argue that classification justifications quickly become routine or ritualized, ceasing to be threat-driven, with many operations conducted for merely operational reasons. Indeed, many of the calls for greater transparency issued in the 1990s spoke of how the end of the cold war “made the need for covert action less demonstrable and should prompt a reexamination of every aspect of these activities” (Goodman, 2001). And while one might argue that such reasoning was shattered by the 9/11 attacks, calls for disclosure have generally increased since the Bush Administration’s War on Terror began, with the 2004 9/11 Commission recommending “overall amounts of money being appropriated for national intelligence and to its component agencies should no longer be kept secret” (Best & Bazan, 2007).


It is important to note that issues surrounding the black budget and government secrecy are not tied to specific administrations or executive policies. While the CSBA has not yet released their gloss on the FY 2010 Defense Budget request, there would seem to be little expectation of the numbers differing greatly from the last few years. In addition, the Obama administration recently directed all defense officials to sign pledges assuring secrecy on 2010 budget data, purportedly insisting “strict confidentiality” was necessary to “ensure a successful and proper 2010 defense budget process” (Bennett, 2009).

Conclusion
Clearly, certain data and information regarding matters of national security and intelligence operations should remain classified. Even the strongest proponents of open government recognize that some programs or details might prove harmful if available to the wrong individuals. While clandestine operations may be distasteful to many, the likelihood of all such operations disappearing from the American landscape seems improbable. But American citizens also have the right to demand accountability – both of the actions of their government and of what that government has chosen to do with the citizenry’s money. A strict adherence to the Constitution would result in the black budget being made public, although perhaps not on a line-item basis. Such an action might open up greater dialogue being the government and the governed, might help prevent waste and fraud, might help share technology and boost research, and would help prevent disinformation and conspiracy theories from proliferating. Finally, it would allow average citizens to access basic documents accounting for their tax dollars, and help bring the intelligence budget in line with every other aspect of U. S. government documents – that of an open and free exchange of information. While the dangers of declassification have yet to be substantiated, the dangers of maintaining black budgets are many.