Black Budget Snowden reveals US spends $52bn on secret programs

Transcript

Britain has asked the New York Times to get rid of copies of documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden that's as another us newspaper revealed from one of the top secret files just how much America spends on surveillance the so-called black budget has never been shown to the public until now let's give you some of the facts and figures here on RT the classified data showing the US has splashed out more than 52 billion bucks on intelligence gathering just this year alone the CIA are getting the Lion Share of more than 14 billion that's a lot more than the NSA or any other Agency for that matter the national reconnaissance office and the go special and general defense intelligence programs also coming near the top of the money League here together they got $19.6 billion to operate satellites draw maps and assess foreign military plans and resources well meanwhile snowden's leaks of national recognition he was awarded the 2013 whistleblower prize by a coalition of Nos and as artist Peter Oliver in Berlin reports snowden's name is now featuring prominently in Germany's upcoming general election well he's certainly not on the Christmas card list of the German government as it stands these uh leaked documents that he's he's put forward have really been rather damning on the German government and just how complicit it seems that the BND the uh the German Security Services were in terms of spying not only to help the NSA but spying in fact on their own people here in Germany when Edward Snowden released these documents uh one of the things I'm sure he didn't think he would be was a major issue the German elections the uh that's on the 22nd of September the general election here and it's become one of the the main the only real issue that people seem to be attacking Angela Merkel over Pier steinbrook the leader of the social Democrats who's her her main Challenger in this election had said if he becomes Chancellor if he wins this election then he will be asking some serious questions of the United States and he'll also be looking into uh delaying an important trade deal saying how can we possibly look at doing trade with the Americans when we don't know if they have microphones under all of our desks um so this has become something that uh the politicians are looking to attack Angela Merkel on it's probably one of the only things she's really weak on in the public eye uh because not only it seems did she allow the United States to spy on Germany but seems that she also helped the United States to spy on Germany so this is one of the reasons why Edward Snowden has received this award and he is uh well been honored with this by a number of groups uh for his work in revealing what turns out to be the the wide ranging um spying activities of the NSA and the United States