The FBI has “hundreds of millions of dollars” to spend on developing technology for use in both national security and domestic law enforcement investigations — but it won’t reveal the exact amount.
Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI James Burrell spoke about the secretive budget of the Operational Technology Division — which focuses on all the bureau’s advanced investigative gizmos, from robots to surveillance tech to biometric scanners during a roundtable discussion on encryption technology.
In December 2015, The Washington Post reported the budget of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division at between $600 and $800 million, but officials refused to confirm the exact amount.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept on the division’s budget.
The intelligence community sponsored the roundtable on Thursday and Friday to spark discussion among academics, scientists, developers, and tech officials on the finer points of encryption — and to try to answer whether it’s technically possible to give law enforcement access to secure devices without compromising digital security.
The National Academies of Science, Technology, and Medicine hosted the workshop, which included Chris Inglis, former deputy director of the NSA; James Baker, the top lawyer for the FBI; and tech officials from Apple, Microsoft, and other companies.
Burrell said the FBI divides its technical focuses into two areas: core IT capabilities, and the Operational Technology Division, which devotes resources to researching and developing technology “specifically for use in investigations.”
The division’s budget had to be put “into context,” Burrell stressed. Resources are split between tools developed for national security investigations versus domestic law enforcement. “Sometimes we’re not able to use the technology we develop for one side equally on the other,” because some technology is classified, he said.
The FBI has tried to keep evidence gleaned from its advanced, national security technology secret in court proceedings relating to domestic investigations — technology like Stingrays, which mimic cell phone towers to track location information of an entire geographical area. The FBI has even chosen to throw out legal prosecutions to hide its technical capabilities — a controversial decision that’s been criticized by advocates for transparency.
The bureau has also repeatedly stressed how challenging and expensive it is to develop capabilities to hack into devices rather than have a mandated access point in encryption. “Hacking devices, … of course we do it, but it is slow,” Baker said in his concluding remarks. “It’s expensive, it’s very fragile.”
The FBI has requested over $100 million more dollars for its operational technology division and cyber division for 2017 — pushing the grand total closer to a billion, if the Washington Post‘s figure is accurate. The FBI asked for over $85 million to bulk up its cyber offense and defense — and over $38 million to counter the problem encryption and other anonymity software poses during investigations through technological means.
“Of all kinds of government secrecy, budget secrecy is the least defensible,” Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy run by the Federation of American Scientists, wrote in an email to The Intercept. Publishing the budget is required by the Constitution, he pointed out.
Agencies often prefer not to divulge budget in order keep some programs below the radar, or because keeping the amounts secret “helps to obscure large increases or decreases in funding that could attract unwanted attention,” he said.
Technology officials largely agree that giving any sort of “exceptional access” to software would damage an already fragile digital security regime experts have spent decades trying to improve.
During the first panel session, the conversation turned to what the FBI might be able to do instead of supporting mandated “backdoors” or security holes in products in order to intercept communications of suspects.
Baker, the bureau’s top lawyer, said the FBI’s technical capabilities are “finite” but “in some ways” are “better and increasing every day.”
Maybe this sounds naive, but why do we need the NSA and Homeland Security, which I think go into the billions, when the FBI already is bloated?
Then we’ve got the military and the Pentagon. No wonder we have no money for infrastructure and have to have prisons for profit, which are a nightmare in civil rights, underpaying its employees, too, and we can’t bring the poor out of poverty, or even feed the children.
Ppl only say things are “too complicated to understand” because they don’t want to explain :b. I’m pretty sure the amount of secrecy they need to shroud their actions in a government allegedly “of the people” says your feelings hit the nail on the head :/
…And?
Bring down the corrupt DC Gang please guys and gals at Intercept. Thanx
The bureau has also repeatedly stressed how challenging and expensive it is to develop capabilities to hack into devices rather than have a mandated access point in encryption.
“It would be so much cheaper and more efficient if we had a government mandate to split open a defendant’s head with a chisel and spread the brains out on a table, with a spatula, for analysis.” The same official added “We could then dissolve the tissue in acid, and look for closely-held secrets in the resulting solution, with a mass spectrometer.”
The division’s budget had to be put “into context,”
The $400 quadrillion dollar budget is tiny compared to the number of elementary particles in the universe, said an unnamed defense/intelligence source.
Lol. I need you to rephrase Obama’s drone program and police state for me because “some folks got killed” is wearing off and I need to be rocked back into complacency. Pls.
Have you considered oscillating between that and ‘we tortured some folks’ at a properly decided-upon rate (and similar) as well? I find it helps to sort of turn it into a series of phrases instead of the same phrase, over and over again in a loop. (Not even kidding). It’s not yoga, but it apparently does cut down on the monotony of so much death, torture, destruction and invasion of liberties.
FBI’s Secret Surveillance Tech Budget Is ‘Hundreds of Millions’
Another day, another article tip toeing around the elephant in the room which was disclosed over a decade ago, still being hidden and continues unabated today as these agencies and programs run rampant within our communities. ZZZzzz… Still asleep.
Hummm… what “secret tech” are they hiding?? If you ever want to know about it and do a real story my email is there for you with a over a decade of documented evidence, but we know you don’t want the real story. Either way, the story will come out and lines have been drawn. Either you are with us, or with them. Still think Stingray is some tracking device?? LOL. Sure, keep believing the forced evidence people had to pry to get these pathological liars to be transparent while they are handing you thru false FOIA and redacted documents nothing but lies. By the way, according to a small few of your readers, some even writing articles, you might be considered “mentally ill” for suggesting there is “secret tech” being used against the population. Be careful, you might get labeled a tin-foil hat wearing mentally ill person who needs government meds for such a suggestion. I’ll be waiting for the next hard hitting article, where yet again, nothing of significant importance will be exposed. Till then, we are watching and we watch the watchers.
Jun 24, 2016 Obama’s assasination policy; Media censorship & war on whistleblowers w/ Mickey Huff
Will Barack Obama be remembered for opening the doors to Cuba and denuclearizing Iran, or for his bloody drone wars? In this episode of “Behind The Headline,” Mnar Muhawesh, editor-in-chief of MintPress News, exposes the reality of America’s policy of worldwide targeted drone assassinations that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
https://youtu.be/NtznIBOVhy0
They did such a great job securing the Secretary of State’s basement e-mail servers that we should never question anything they do.
Americans are being stalked and harassed on U.S. soil by the FBI and JTTFs (including their Infragard partners, among others). Things aren’t what they seem in the good old US of A.
Let’s keep this in perspective,although I commend the intercept for their investigative journalism.
The IRS spent more than 3 billion just in a failed attempt to integrate their computers.
The Obamacare website cost 2.1 billion according to Bloomberg.
If this is the correct amount then it is pitifully low. I seriously doubt most real criminals have much to worry about much less average citizens.
All this gadgetry and thanks to Obama’s subversive mandates the FBI couldn’t catch a ‘possum, if it was illegal or Muslim.
GO TRUMP!
Yet, the State Department can let an insecure server operate, for years, without intervention. Maybe these secrets are not so secret. Maybe we should ask wikileaks how large the budget is, they probably know.
The snark is strong in this one.
Indeed! How enlightening of Ted122! How hard would it be to just open up a browser and look up that info on wikileaks? But then what would be the rhetorical value of it?
Let’s just parse the first sentence:
* “hundreds of millions of dollars”: could mean anywhere from $10^8 to $(10^9 – 1)
* to spend on developing technology: what is the purpose of “developing” anything if all U.S.-based companies are “patriotically” in bed with USG (even Apple with their silly, pretentious “we care about our customers’ privacy” shows (if they do why do they make virtually impossible removing the battery off their phones?))
* for use in both national security and domestic: from a merely technical point of view electromagnetic waves don’t have “domestic” or (INTER did Jenna mean?)national concerns. Politically, USG is trying to redefine itself as some sort of mixed between the worst of the Catholic Church and the STASI spying on every sinner regardless of their nationality, creed, age, … whatever! We are all sinners, with the difference that we are not even allow to know why? At least the Catholic Church was open about their b#llsh!t
* law enforcement: the law as we have understood it since we became (somewhat) civilized people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law
ceased to exist already. What is the point of having selective laws for the 0.1% and the rest of us which interpretations are secret? What is the point of enforcing such fraud? As an abusive illusion to maintain the status quo? Sure! but not as -law-
Also, let’s not forget that:
* “We the people” fund them with 30% of the monies we make through our taxes and even pay for carrying cell phones; and
* that techno sh!t is becoming cheaper, faster and more ubiquitous than we can make sense of and that trend won’t end any time soon (if ever), so Jenna’s next article would be about them spending “less than a hundred of millions of dollars”?
RCL
and to try to answer whether it’s technically possible to give law enforcement access to secure devices without compromising digital security.
++++
It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.
Hey. No fair injecting charmingly nostalgic semantics into a deeply important, current series of questions.
Here’s the problem: That same technology will be turned against the law abiding, Constitutional Rights demanding citizen whenever the progressive, socialistic left is in power!
Will be? Is.
How much was spent on just the obamacare website? How many billions did the IRS spend on their failed first attempt to integrate their computers?
Jeebus the FBI is being starved lol, probably to fund a few extra billion for refugee resettlement.
Truth:
Stasi-like apparatus from sea to shining sea.
Expose it.
QUOTE: ….all the bureau’s advanced investigative gizmos, from robots to surveillance tech to biometric scanners….the budget of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division at between $600 and $800 million.
WHAT AN OUTRAGE! Americans are robbed to pay for salaries and fancy equipment, NONE OF WHICH have helped the feckless fools catch all the TERRORISTS Obama is bringing into this country by the UPS plane-loads and Van-loads crossing the border. It’s obvious that NONE of that equipment is being used on the terrorists occupying the mosques and synagogs across this country —- just on REAL Americans. The FBI Director, his Deputy, and division chiefs PLUS the congressional committees responsible for FBI OVERSIGHT should be FIRED! Comey won’t even arrest the biggest felon on the planet despite truckloads of evidence — Hillary Clinton! At this point the whole federal government should be ABOLISHED due to overwhelming CORRUPTION!
The FBI shouldn’t have $5 in their account. Abolish them along with the IRS and let the CIA take care of us. The FBI screwed up 911 because of their incompetence. They’re the biggest joke on the planet.
Whattaya mean “screwed up”? 9/11 went jus’ fine. Lookit all our toys!
I’d be okay with buying them cars and a limited amount of gas provided those cars didn’t have cameras and they had to actually do surveillance instead of skirt around the constitution and toss us all in a gps-heavy, surveillance-run police state. Not that I’d be a fan of that but at least it’d make peoples’ lives and privacy less cheap and disposable to the way they think and operate.
Er not me personally, obviously. I’d be okay with our taxes going to that over … whatever the awful bloody hell this is we have now. I guess I’m saying, I’d take the 70s version of the FBI to the current one (despite its corruption then).
the secretive budget of the Operational Technology Division” Secret budgets, secret courts, secret meetings. THIS ALL HAS TO END!
As Terrorist #1 and facing a growing national debt of 20 trillion dollars which will destroy it, a fearful USA never stops trying to control its population using every possible trick, legal or not. The massive assassination of citizens by the police is another sign that major riots and pandemonium are around the corner. Good bye America.
It would be sweet if our government could use this for something other than making sure the other party doesn’t get elected.
Excellent reporting. Thanks.
Ms. McLaughlin
You have become my favorite reporter/author of all news sources. When I read your articles, I get easy-to-understand, extremely topical, decimated facts. Although obviously, human nature dictates you have your own thought process, your logical, clearly written prose is impeccable.
At this point I have little need for papa/mama type shaming, nor the collective praises of a demi-god to the masses for doing “_._”
When I read your articles, I THINK. Who, where, when, how and most important to me, why.
Follow the money.
Thank you.
Every day in every way, our computers are processing faster and growing better.
Sleep tight America. So many old records to digitize. So much more to correlate.
Soon, a warrantless society.
You can never be too safe you know. Support our foreign policy of Bombs for Peace and Pieces. Support total omnipresent transparent observation of everything everywhere.
the fbi needs to be shut down
VERY well said.
Unfortunately, that is not about to happen at the hands of our “leaders”.
Funny that ALL that money for surveillance…AND a slew of tips from the public, coworkers, and the gun store owner…and the FBI STILL couldn’t figure out that Omar Gobbledegook was a terrorist!
Ironically, they can tell you what every AMERICAN gun owner had for breakfast this morning.
Way to go, G men…
The good news is when you’re under such micro-concealed high-tech x-ray scrutiny, there’s really no reason to wear pants around the house. Bonus!
Not everyone thinks this is a joke.
That does sorta change one’s perspective, doesn’t it? Lol
I don’t believe him. With all those…resources then, why haven’t they been able to successfully build a case and prosecute Crooked Hillary? Somebody lying about something here…besides Hillary, Obama and his AG Lynch who are also up to their necks in all of this…
China is building a quantum communications grid which will eventually go global. With quantum communications of a message gets looked at or copied it disturbs the quantum state and both parties know it has been seen.
This would solve a lot of encryption problems.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) was the encryption standard for years. The author didn’t claim it was perfect, just pretty good.
Eventually, somebody will put a little money into some C++ libraries and a Secure Stack. These systems will support an ecosystem of security products. Modern Websites are driven by free SQL databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL etc. In the same way open source encryption/security software will drive secure software development.
The government must be working behind the scenes to thwart the development of robust, high quality, open source encryption or it would be here already.
“The most transparent administration in history” Knows everything about everyone. But thinks no one knows what they hide, redact, lie about, think the law is for “little people”. We all will reap what we sow and we all will die. As for me, I would not care to sell my soul for a bunch of power and glitter. Remember “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction ” when you go to enslave your fellow man with your “progressive globalist lies
DUH!
Interesting that the FBI is so underfunded they couldn’t investigate the Orlando shooter, but plenty of cash to use against the citizens that paid for their protection.
How much money do they budget for COINTELPRO informer payments?
DHS pays out millions, arranges for visas for family of immigrant COINTELPRO snitches, pays for home repairs of individuals participating in harassment networks. DOJ also dumps billions of dollars into InfraGard, whose members in turn get contracts for their privately-owned, street-level stalker-companies.
I know nothing of how immigrant stalkers are compensated but I know from personal experience the American Stasi does use them for street , elevator, parking garage, and workplace level stalk & harass duty.
Some corporations also ‘outsource’ stalking and harassment duties to private security firms in an attempt to distract their own employee/targets from producing work for them.
How fucked up is that? About as fucked up as those US rat lines to ISIS and Al Qaeda. Americans is so dumb. Watch them vote and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
creating new enemies in their minds – to finish the creation of the police state…their advice on how to hide the evidence of the use of a stingray – to get evidence throw out – in by lies and FRAUD… the F.B.I.’s own documents
Interesting, they need millions to spy on AMERICANS, but can’t tell you who the next jihadi is that will commit crimes in the name of Islam !!! WTF!
Now you know why Snowden did what he did: to expose the spying by our own government on us…..
Nothing like using our tax money that we pay every week to spy on us and take away our freedoms! Amazing.
No surprise…it takes that much for Obama-Clinton to go after all the people on their massive enemies lists.
First, their Intimidation through Revenue Seizure (IRS) began persecuting their political enemies.
Now Obama-Clinton unleashed law enforcement on all who disagree with them.
off with their heads ~
executing truth
court jester has royalty
laughing their heads off
Snowden and Assange are both beginning to look like angels….
They looked like angels to me from the outset. The up front, ‘in our face’ character assassination on Assange was a study though. However, it was also a study for Snowden and thankfully he managed his affairs in a manner that enabled his documents to come into the public domain, beyond the reach of the U.S., provoking the worldwide awareness and debate that they have. Their idealism and courage has greatly benefited mankind. We are very fortunate.
If Snowden had given those docs to Assange we would probably be having a very different kind of conversation about the US Stasi’s Zersetzung programs right now. Instead he gave them to an American journalist. Predictably, Stasi Vermin impunity is protected and their feeding trough is bottomless. It’s a shame. But I hope you’re feeling comfortable, fortunate guy.
I disagree with the statement that hindsight is 20/20 (it rarely is) but I’m curious who YOU think would have handled things better? I think the Guardian actually acted nobly. I’ve been struggling to come up with an answer to this question btw — I’m not being sarcastic here.
(acted nobly doesn’t mean I think they performed perfectly .. I don’t really know if much of anybody acted perfectly… if anyone did, Ed Snowden did come close from his end, and it’s not fair to expect more from much of anybody. One can’t control all variables. Honestly, I’d be surprised you of all people wouldn’t agree that America and the UK et al can be damned good at intimidation and ruination. Clearly status matters. I haven’t seen any other newspaper with access going much further. And I suspect people would just have shut down completely if they’d all been dumped out there. I am greatly disappointed with where things have gone. But can any of us really say what would have worked? I mean, look at the ‘opponents’ (and I don’t think most of us signed up to be at war with the most powerful political alliances in the world — as Americans OR citizens of other countries).
And they STILL dropped the ball on the jihadi in Orlando. Incompetence sure is expensive.
He was Muslim, and as such was not worth their effort. They only go after anyone who might impede their rush towards the utopia of One World Government.
May every one of them burn in hell where they belong.
Federal Bureau of Islam
What a huge waste of money. No wonder we are 20 trillion in debt. My guess is the majority protects New York and DC leaving the rest of us to die.
You nailed it. But in truth, they protect not only New York and DC, but the REST of the Elite as well.
Mere Citzens? Nacho much.
Why do the Fibbies need ANY surveillance money? They missed 9-11, Boston and Orlando despite a ton of warnings. A hundred special agents have been on Hillary’s trail for six months and still no indictment and there will never be one. Corrupt AND inept, exactly what we expect from the sock puppets at the JUST-US dept.
Wish they spent more of it investigating Hillary
You’d need two universe’s worth of eternities to do that sufficiently thoroughly.
Military (DoD Iraq) grade RF weapons used on innocent civilians listed as possible dissenters. Directed Energy Weapons are lethal over time.
These weapons are also capable of through wall viewing.
FBI STASI…….creepy!
quote”FBI STASI…….creepy!”unquote
Indeed. The only thing missing on their uniforms is a SWASTIKA.
Why say, quote unquote, when you use quotation marks?
FBI … Fumbling Bumbling Idiots.
And yet the FBI has not foiled one single Islamic terrorist plot with any of their technology and never will. It’s nothing more than opposition research on Republicans, conservatives, Tea Party, etc.
Perhaps the FBI already has Hillary’s “deleted” emails!
quote”The FBI has requested over $100 million more dollars for its operational technology division and cyber division for 2017—pushing the grand total closer to a billion, if the Washington Post‘s figure is accurate. “unquote
1 BILLION DOLLARS. For surveillance of American citizens. This redefines the word ABSURD, ..notwithstanding STAZI. Our Congress has sold us out folks. FUCK THEM. And FUCK ..the US Stazi.