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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder - Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. More

Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal. He previously served as the politics editor, and is now a contributing editor, for The Atlantic, where he curated the influential Politics channel on TheAtlantic.com and contributed to the magazine. He was also a chief political consultant to CBS News. Earlier, at NJ's Hotline, Ambinder was the founding editor of "Hotline On Call," a pathbreaking political news blog. He also worked as a producer and reporter for the ABC News Political Unit and was one of the founders of ABC's "The Note." Born in New York City, raised in Central Florida, Ambinder is a 2001 graduate of Harvard and lives in Washington, D.C.
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Budget Easter Egg: Intelligence: Classified

By Marc Ambinder

Feb 26 2009, 12:10 PM ET Comment

No transparency here: the Obama administration won't release the total budget for the naitonal intelligence program, the line item that funds the intelligence community remains "classified," even though it's hard to conceive of a case where the release of that single number -- it was $44 billion in 2005 -- would harm national security.

Actually, I'm being deliberately misleading, too. Most intelligence programs are run by and funded through Department of Defense appropriations; the three DoD intelligence budgets account for at least $30 billion.

FYI: any member of Congress can request a briefing on the classified budget, although certain programs -- so-called "waived" programs -- are disclosed only to senior members of defense and intelligence appropriation subcommittees.



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