The Black Budget: The Cash Behind America's Spy Agencies

The Washington Post released details on the U.S.'s "black budget", the $52.6 billion of expenditures that went into the 2012 government agencies covering covert action, surveillance, intelligence and counterintelligence.

The details for the budget were leaked by Edward Snowden, the famed NSA analyst who blew the whistle on the National Security Agency (NSA) PRISM program in June before finding asylum in Russia.

The largest program is the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at $14.3 billion, with $2.6 billion devoted to "covert action". Their costs were followed closely by Snowden's former employee, the NSA, at $10.8 billion.  The combined intelligence agencies employed 107,035 employees last year.

The $52.6 billion is - comparative to the federal budget - a large sum for an arm of government that has grown exponentially to fight threats of terror on U.S. soil following the attacks of September 11, 2001. By point of comparison, the federal budget for all primary and secondary schools in the country is just over $40 billion.

Getting data on national intelligence programs in America is a new development in government transparency, with the Washington Post noting that even the bottom line of operating costs for these programs has only been public since 2007. Through inference, the Post concludes that the spending for counterintelligence in the last decade is the highest it has been since the Cold War.

The main objective of the intelligence community is counter-terrorism operations, and though results since 2001 suggest some degree of success, the agencies have recognized several critical gaps in their analysis of information. Most significantly, the departments have little understanding of North Korea's capabilities or the motivations and machinations of supreme leader Kim Jung Un.  Likewise, the country's intelligence organizations have concerns about the manner with which Pakistan transports nuclear weapons and material. The government is also unclear about how Russia would respond in the event of a destabilization event, such as a terrorist attack or widespread popular protest.