CIA refuses to release historical budget data

The acting director of Central Intelligence told a federal court this week that he will not release historical budget information for the intelligence community and, in some cases, does not have past budget data for individual agencies.

The Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the release of the total U.S. intelligence budget from 1947 to 1970, as well as budget totals for subsidiary agencies such as the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency. John McLaughlin, who serves as acting director of both Central Intelligence and the CIA, told a federal court this week that releasing such information might damage U.S. national security by giving adversaries sensitive information about sources and methods.

"I have carefully considered the ramifications of releasing the total CIA budgets for fiscal years 1947 to 1970 and a few budget numbers from other agencies for fiscal year 1947," McLaughlin wrote in a letter to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. "I have concluded that publicly disclosing the intelligence budget information that [the] plaintiff seeks would tend to reveal intelligence methods that, in the interest of maintaining an effective intelligence service, ought not be publicly revealed."

McLaughlin said the CIA possesses budget information on total CIA budgets for all but one year between 1947 through 1970, but does not possess budget information for the overall intelligence community or other agencies for those years. He said a search conducted for the requested information found only a few budget numbers for other agencies, "which may or may not be accurate."

He noted that the CIA has not been able to reconstruct the total CIA budget figure for 1965.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy, said his organization will submit a counterargument to the court by the end of the month. The organization has an ongoing open government project and wants the budget data as part of that.

"This is an ongoing litigation and we're not through," he said. "Budget disclosure is a very serious matter, it is constitutionally mandated … The larger point is even the records that they do have they refuse to release and that to me is a sign of either bad faith or a complete misapprehension of security policy."

McLaughlin noted that Congress has never disclosed the aggregate amount appropriated for intelligence purposes, or the CIA. He added that Congress rejected legislative proposals three times in recent years that would have required the government to disclose the annual aggregate intelligence budget.

"Congress' own treatment of intelligence appropriations since 1947, coupled with the statutory authority that it has provided for the clandestine transfer and spending of those funds, demonstrate its intent that intelligence budget information - in particular aggregate intelligence budgets and CIA budgets - should not be publicly disclosed," McLaughlin said.

Aftergood noted that the 9/11 commission has proposed abolishing the secrecy surrounding intelligence budgets, and making the overall intelligence budget public from now on.