SECRECY NEWS – NRO RELEASES REDACTED BUDGET BOOK FOR FY 2013

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the U.S. intelligence agency
that is responsible for developing and operating the nation's intelligence
satellites, has released a redacted version of its Congressional Budget
Justification Book for the current fiscal year in response to a Freedom of
Information Act request.

"NRO systems allow users to quickly focus multiple sensors on almost any
point on the globe to respond to emerging crises or operational
requirements and provide persistent, multi-INT coverage," the budget
document says.

"With these capabilities the NRO is an indispensable contributor to
national policymakers, the overall national intelligence effort, and the
war on terrorism and ongoing military operations.... In addition to their
primary intelligence missions, NRO systems increasingly support Homeland
Security requirements."

        http://www.fas.org/irp/nro/fy2013cbjb.pdf

During the present budget year, the NRO said it is working "to improve the
responsiveness of existing systems." But it is also "developing new product
types integrating multi-platform, multi-INT, and multi-domain data to
maximize overhead performance and synergistically address the nation's
highest priority issues."

The agency told Congress it has had "successes developing new operational
concepts and sensor data processing tools enabling legacy satellites,
designed against different collection requirements and operating well
beyond their design lives, to effectively address current intelligence
problems."

The large majority of the NRO budget document has been redacted as
classified and was withheld from public disclosure.  But meaningful
glimmers of fact or assertion can still be found in what has been released.
 For example:

NRO said it has accomplished a "recent 88 percent reduction in
collection-to-analyst dissemination timelines."

NRO expects to complete 15,000 initial and periodic security clearance
reviews during the current fiscal year.

The budget document says the funding request for the NRO Inspector General
was cut by 37% this year. The NRO said this reduction could be managed
although sharp cuts in future budgets were discouraged:  "There is no
greater time when an organization is in need of oversight than in times of
significantly decreasing budgets. It is during difficult fiscal decline
that fraud is most likely to occur, when management controls weaken, and
when unintended performance risks take root."

The current NRO research agenda includes efforts "to take advantage of
massive data sets, multiple data sources, and high-speed machine processing
to identify patterns without a priori knowledge or pattern definition; [as
well as] visualization and presentation of patterns for human
interpretation to enable identification of normal and abnormal behaviors to
detect, characterize, and identify elusive targets."

The redacted budget document devotes at least cursory attention to NRO
strategic planning, human resources, administration, facilities,
information technology, and research and development, among other topics. 
Actual NRO budget numbers were not disclosed.

PRESIDENTIAL REORGANIZATION AUTHORITY, AND MORE FROM CRS

Noteworthy new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service
that have not been made available to the public include the following.

Presidential Reorganization Authority: History, Recent Initiatives, and
Options for Congress, December 11, 2012:

        http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42852.pdf

Presidential Appointee Positions Requiring Senate Confirmation and
Committees Handling Nominations, November 15, 2012:

        http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30959.pdf

Legal Protections for Subcontractors on Federal Prime Contracts, December
10, 2012:

        http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41230.pdf

Loss of Federal Pensions for Members of Congress Convicted of Certain
Offenses, December 10, 2012:

        http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/96-530.pdf

The National Defense Authorization Act for FY2012: Detainee Matters,
December 11, 2012:

        http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42143.pdf

"Gang of Four" Congressional Intelligence Notifications, November 19,
2012:

        http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R40698.pdf

_______________________________________________
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
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email:  saftergood@fas.org
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twitter: @saftergood