Tracing the Rise and Fall of Intelligence Spending As Portrayed in Official Government Publications

U.S. intelligence agencies long argued that public disclosure of intelligence budget appropriations would "damage national security" and jeopardize "intelligence sources and methods."  This proposition has been disputed for decades by critics in Congress and elsewhere, and a growing number of other nations now routinely publish their intelligence spending levels as an act of democratic accountability. In any case, even under the prevailing secrecy policy, a good deal of information about intelligence spending could be discerned from official government sources.
The changes in the total annual budget for the former National Foreign Intelligence Program (which encompassed the budgets of all national-level intelligence agencies such as CIA, NRO, NSA, DIA, NGA, etc.) from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s are evident from this bar chart published by Congress in 1993.

Remarkably, total intelligence funding grew by 125 percent in real (constant dollar) terms from 1980 to 1989, as noted by the Aspin-Brown Commission on intelligence. It declined thereafter, but by the mid-1990s it still remained at a level 80 percent higher than the 1980 figure.

In response to Freedom of Information Act litigation , the Director of Central Intelligence declassified the total intelligence budget for fiscal year 1997: $26.6 billion.
The DCI again declassified the total intelligence budget for fiscal year 1998: $26.7 billion .
No identifiable damage to national security or intelligence methods ensued as a result of these official disclosures. Yet officials refused, with congressional acquiescence, to formally release subsequent or prior intelligence budget totals until the FY 2007 budget for the National Intelligence Program -- $43.5 billion -- was disclosed in October 2007.
The upward trend in intelligence spending since 9/11 is clear from this chart produced by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and published by the Congressional Joint Inquiry into September 11.

In 2007, the Director of National Intelligence declassified and disclosed the FY 2007 budget for the National Intelligence Program: $43.5 billion .
The FY 2008 budget total for the NIP was officially disclosed in 2008: $47.5 billion . The FY 2009 budget total for the NIP was disclosed in 2009: $49.8 billion .

Sources : fas