FAS

New Light on Intelligence Budget Earmarks

05.10.07 | 1 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

One new feature of the intelligence budgeting process is the mandatory public disclosure of “earmarks” — funds that are specifically requested by an individual member of Congress and designated for a particular program.

The disclosures shed at least a few photons worth of new light on the deliberately obscure intelligence budget.

More than two dozen earmarks, from the $500,000 for a “Behavior Pattern Training Recognition Program” requested by Rep. Ed Pastor (D-AZ) to the $23 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center requested by Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), are itemized in the printed (or PDF) version of the House Intelligence Committee report on the FY 2008 Intelligence Authorization Act (pdf) (at pp. 50-51).

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