USA: Pentagon black budget $52.6B leak
Documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed the Pentagon's black budget reached $52.6 billion in 2013. The government discloses total intelligence spending but not its allocation or performance against set goals.
Background
Background
In 2013, secret documents leaked by the former contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the Pentagon had a black budget of 52.6 billion dollars. This budget served covert operations and remained largely opaque.
Details of the Disclosure
Since 2007 the United States has published the total figure for the intelligence sector annually, but withholds the precise allocation of the funds and whether the objectives set by the president and Congress were met. The reporting rested on an analysis in the Washington Post of August 29, 2013. Snowden, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, made this information public, which prompted debates about surveillance and secrecy.
Significance
The disclosure shed light on the immense funding of secret programmes without any insight into their use. It underlines the opacity of US intelligence and set off discussions about transparency, although there was no direct connection to UAP sightings.