Lavori di intelligence

PARE CHE NEGLI Usa ci saranno tagli per lo spionaggio. Anche perché la spesa è parecchio consistente...

Money quote: Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. spent $47.5 billion on spying in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a 9 percent increase over 2007, according to Michael McConnell, the country's head of intelligence.

Last year, Congress passed a law requiring the director of national intelligence to make public the amount of money appropriated annually for spying. The Bush administration opposed the measure, arguing that revealing the number might compromise operations.

In 2007, the U.S. spent $43.5 billion on spying, according to McConnell.

The law doesn't require the release of any details on how the money is spent ``because such disclosures could harm national security,'' McConnell said in a statement today.

The spending figure doesn't include money spent on military tactical intelligence. Funding for these operations would be at least an additional $10 billion, said Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.

The group sued the Central Intelligence Agency in 1997 to force the release of the total intelligence budget. The intelligence community disclosed that its annual budget was $26 billion in both 1997 and 1998.