Spy budget shrank in fiscal 2014

The nation’s spy offices were given about $2 billion less in 2014 than last year.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed on Thursday that in fiscal 2014, Congress gave federal spy agencies $50.5 billion — a decrease from the $52.7 billion given the previous year. The 2013 figure was ultimately reduced to $49 billion, however, due to the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration, which affected practically every arm of government.

{mosads}Compared to previous years, the 2014 budget was relatively low.

In 2012, the spy agencies were given $53.9 billion by Congress. In 2011, it was $54.6 billion.

The budget deal reached last year relieved sequestration for both fiscal 2014 and 2015, though the cuts are scheduled to return again after that point.

Since 2007, the federal government has been required by law to annually disclose the top-line amount of money Congress appropriates to the National Intelligence Program (NIP), a vehicle that funds the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and a handful of other federal spy agencies.

How, precisely, that money gets doled out among the spy agencies is a closely guarded secret that has earned the name the “black budget.”

“Beyond the disclosure of the NIP top-line figure, there will be no other disclosures of currently classified NIP budget information because such disclosures could harm national security,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement releasing the 2014 figure.

Documents released by Edward Snowden last year showed that the CIA received about 28 percent of the intelligence funding. The NSA and the National Reconnaissance Office, which controls spy satellites, received a slightly smaller chunk of the money, followed by other agencies.