NSA Budget

[/ dave /]

J Cullen wrote:
 
> Can anybody tell me what the estimated budget of the National Security
> Agency is? Extra credit if you can tell me how much it is estimated they
> spend on Echelon, the communications surveillance project.

I had this odd tidbit stored away, but I'd find someone with Times archive access to verify:

"Spying Budget Made Public By Mistake", By Tim Weiner
The New York Times, November 5 1994
   
By mistake, a Congressional subcommittee has published an unusually
detailed breakdown of the highly classified "black budget" for United
States intelligence agencies.
  
In previously defeating a bill that would have made this information
public, the White House, CIA and Pentagon argued that revealing the
secret budget would cause grave damage to the national security of
the United States.

$3.1  billion for the CIA
$10.4 billion for the Army, Navy, Air Force
and Marines special-operations units
$13.2 billion for the NSA/NRO/DIA

I've seen another estimate of +/- $4 billion for the NSA alone, but given that their
allocation is officially "off the books" it's probably anybody's guess. Ditto for Echelon of
course. A search on "Duncan Campbell" might turn something up, as he's written extensively
on Echelon.

--

/  dave  /