Khang Nguyen Nguyen 1
English 102-11
Melody Niesen
03/31/11
Augmentative Essay
Behind the Black Veil: The Black Projects
The United States is in trouble. According to the U.S. National Debt Clock ran by
US Debt Clock.org, the national debt is at 14 trillion. This is more than ten times the
amount of debt we had back in 1980 (this is including inflation). This may not be a
surprise to some, but it is still a concern that we need to face head on. One of the main
causes is war. Sources such as The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq
Conflict by Stiglitz, Joseph E, and Linda Bilmes noted that the first year of the Iraq War,
the Bush administration and Congress spent over one trillion dollars. This trend has
continued throughout the years for both the Afghanistan and Iraqi Wars to total up to
three trillion dollars. We need to realize two things: one, the three trillion dollars is
probably a greatly outdated number because of the book‟s publication date of 2008
meaning that the book (and the research) was probably conceived around 2006-2007. The
second thing we need to realize is that even when we compare the national debt to how
much we spent since 2008 (or sooner), we have spent nearly 20 percent of our debt on
war.
Realize that the three trillion is not all going to the frontlines. Some of those funds
are going to classified military development programs called the “black project.” The
black project is a project that is ran by the military to research, establish, or create an
object, system, or network to assist in protecting the American interest. The problem with
the black projects is that there are no regulations to oversee this particular allocation of
the budget. This essentially means that they have free reign to spend as much money as
they need to be able to complete their projects. The issue with this particular idea is that
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most black projects fail (examples will be brought up later in this paper) (Black 2). There
is too much money going into the black projects‟ budget, the black budget, that does not
produce any results. Therefore, several people have proposed that the United States
establish actual regulations, and a congress ran committee to oversee the black budget; all
meant to limit the black project from spending too much money.
The black project has multiple definitions. According to the article "Black Budget
in the Red,” the black project is a:
“federal leviathan “so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one
knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how
many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the
same work (Black 1).”
They continue to ramble about the black project using words such as “wasteful” and
“bureaucratic actors.” Another publication, the Examiner, states that the black budget is
a:
” black budget funding of highly classified projects that totally escape
legislative oversight and media scrutiny.”
Now one may be clearer than the other (and without the Greek idiom), but they say the
same fundamental idea. The black project and the black budget is a wasteful with the
money that is provided to them and that they are thought to be immune to any legislative
actions or repercussions. This allows them to request (and receive) any amount of money
they wish and also enables them to bypass the bidding for a contractor. This means that
they are allowed to pick whoever they wish to be part of the particular project.
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Of course this leaves many skeptics since there is no invitation for competition.
This smothering of competition often leads to an unnecessarily high tab. The article
“Black Budget in the Red” quotes a black project incident known as the NSA Trailblazer.
This was a “800-pound gorillas of intelligence contracting… (Black 2)” and “$280
million contract to set up this classified data mining system… (Black 2)” To be fair, the
Trailblazer was a desperate attempt to increase communication monitoring to prevent any
terrorist attacks, such as September 11th, 2001, from happening again. NSA or the
National Security Agency was pressured to develop a monitoring system, which in turn,
created unrealistic expectations and the program was eventually scrapped after wasting
$1.2 billion dollars, the salt in the wound for an unrealistic goal that the government
should have realized cannot be possible with today‟s computing abilities.
Strangely enough, the NSA Trailblazer was not really the point I am attempting to
make. If you look more into depth about the NSA Trailblazer, you dig up someone
named William Black. William Black was the vice president of SAIC, the company
contracted to develop the Trailblazer. William Black was also a NSA veteran. He
returned to the NSA to run the project, and after the Trailblazer Program was dropped, he
went back to SAIC. A few years later, President George W. Bush authorized the building
of the controversial wiretapping system. This system was considered, by many analysts,
as the successor program to the NSA Trailblazer. The contractor contracted to develop
this wiretapping system: Science Applications International Corporation, also known as
SAIC.
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Congress plays a large role in this particular discussion about Black Projects. It is
common knowledge that our founding fathers divided our federal government to have
three branches: the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch. This
was meant to prevent one branch, particularly the executive branch, from gaining too
much power and nullifying the others. For instance, when President George W. Bush
authorized the warrantless wiretapping program; congress was within their powers to stop
the president from developing a wiretapping program by limiting or denying his cash
flow. Then why didn‟t they? Why didn‟t they stop the President from carrying out this
program? The reason why congress does nothing is because of the lack of information
that goes into congress budget report. When congress gets a bill that requests funds to be
allocated to their sector during the budgeting sessions, what the money is specifically for,
how much money, information about how the money will be used, etc. When funds are
requested by black project programs, all that is written is the project title, which can
range from “the President‟s Surveillance Program” to “Brilliant Buzzard.” In fact, the
names presented were actual Black Project names, the President‟s Surveillance Program
being President George W. Bush‟s warrantless wiretapping program, and the Brilliant
Buzzard being the program that created the XB-70 Valkyrie, the deep penetration bomber
used by the United States Air Force. This means that we can‟t really centralize black
projects to one exact military branch. It is just a bunch of requests for funds from all the
branches at any time of the year.
To be fair, the black project was not all financial failures. The black projects led
to the development of the advancement in computer processing which in turn led to more
advanced computers. After Bill Gates pushed the world into the age of computers;
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another black project was finishing up and was prepping for release. This particular black
project, I would say, had a bigger impact on the world than even the computer.
Developed to streamline communication and intelligence between military bases;
computer networking took an all new meaning. The internet hit mainstream. When the
internet age came to maturity; it allowed the blossoming of another black project. The
military wanted some way to train soldiers without engaging in potentially physically
harmful activities such as live weapon exercises. This led to the development of the video
game, a virtual simulation of events. These black projects had a profound effect on the
economy, stimulating and changing the entertainment industry and creating an entirely
new technology sector in the stock market.
Even though the success stories mentioned earlier have had a profound effect on
the world, we cannot deny that each development costs us billions upon billions of
dollars to generate a prototype of a concept. In most cases, such as the NSA Trailblazer,
we face complete and utter failure with a large price tag. I am one that understands that
we need to break a few eggs to make scrambled eggs but I really don‟t like eggs that cost
$1.2 billion dollars each. Therefore, there needs to be a method of preventing the black
budget from being over-budgeted and, as a result, overspending.
The main solution would be for Congress to step their foot down and say no to
projects that they do not believe to be worth the money. Legislation passed allows us to
manage and control how much is spent. However, for legislation to gain momentum,
there needs to be a large public push for the legislation. This makes the bill become front
and center of attention. Parts of the bill should contain methods of limiting budgeting to
black projects such as no over-drafting, and penalties such as the agency loses as much in
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their general budget as they over-draft. This would be a large deterrent for the armed
forces to engage in such a practice.
Another section of the bill needs to address the no bid policy that the black
projects tend to have. The no bid policy deters from any competition that would have
decreased failure rates, generated more innovative ideas, and most of all, decreased costs.
For example; if there was a bidding process for a fictional black project called the Flying
Falcon, we could have a budget set at 1 billion dollars. Companies such as Boeing, and
Lockheed would have fair shot at getting the government‟s business. However, this
would mean that they would have to provide design ideas, a budget that is probably lower
than 1 billion dollars, and any other evidence that would indicate that they have been
intensely working on the project.
The conundrum that we encounter would be the companies. It isn‟t within a
corporation to give up money that would have, otherwise, padded their numbers for the
upcoming quarterly release. The companies have full right to fund, say, a congressman
during his or her campaign season. This makes it so the company‟s interests are protected
within congress. Another method that companies employ follows the democratic system
as was intended. Large corporations often partner up with a separate company that
specializes in lobbying. Lobbyists are people who are hired to address congress about
their benefactor‟s needs. These lobbyists meet with legislators and lawmakers to explain
their position. Special interest actions, such as this, guarantee the corporation‟s
entanglement with the government.
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Another step to solving the black budget issue would be to create an entirely new
budget section called the black budget (officially) and set aside an entire committee to
oversee the budget, and would monitor the actions of the black budget. Idealistically, they
would cut off unnecessary funds and bring the black projects back into legislative
jurisdiction by holding them accountable financially. This could be easily accomplished
since committee is common practice in the United States Congress.
The issue with creating an entire committee would be security. If a country was
really ambitious to see the United States‟ military future, they could monitor the budget
reports. The requirements to be part of the Senate are 30 years of age, citizen for seven
years, and reside in the State that you are running in. The requirements for the House are
less “intensive (Symes).” A solution to this problem would be to increase and maintain
constant screening. Also they could also warrant the ability to monitor communications
going in and out throughout their term. This would also allow congressmen to be
monitored for any corporation influences.
This would not be a true paper if there wasn‟t one person who questioned why I
am so concerned about the black project. Skeptics would say that the black project does
two things: protect American lives, and develops new technologies that will keep the
United States on the leading edge. These points are valid, in fact, they are two undeniable
points that are the main reasons why the black projects are manifested in the first place.
This piece of literature isn‟t mean to say absolutely no black projects! They are all a
waste of government funds. In fact, in a paragraph, I provided evidence and indirectly
advocated for the continuation of the black projects because it has led to the development
of the internet, video games, etc. The current black project research seems to be focused
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on robotics. This may led to the development of robots that may become as second place
in the average American life as television sets or the internet. It is just the effectiveness of
the money spent and particular black projects that are, honestly, unachievable. The funds
should be going to possible black projects or not used at all. If congress was to take a step
back and review what black projects have generated, they may be surprised at how much
money was thrown in the trash, or into piles of computer chips and metal.
Another issue that skeptics would be quick to note is that saving an estimated
billion dollars per project (assuming that each project costs as much as the NSA
Trailblazer project) is not a big deal compared to the entire United States budget, which is
at 3.7 trillion dollars (Carter). One billion dollars is less than 0.1 percent of the United
States Government. This would explain why most people would not consider the black
project as a viable issue. The singular argument that I can make is that saving money
where we can is a step towards the direction of decreasing how much we spend and
eventually eliminating our debt. Other than that, I agree that there are more pressing
issues that will take precedent over the black project issue.
The United States of America dollar has been declining for the past few years
because of national debt. Although national security is important, our national debt hides
national security under its giant shadow. This is why we need to decrease the amount of
debt we gain by limiting how much we spend on black projects. To do this we need to set
up regulations and a congress ran committee to oversee and interject on spending for any
black project needs.
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Work Cited
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Independent. 18 Feb. 2009. Web. 16 Feb. 2011.
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Spent." New York Times (2011): n. pag. Web. 11 Apr 2011.
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Hall, Ed. "U.S National Debt Clock." N.p., 29 Mar 2011. Web. 28 Mar 2011.
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"Obama Takes on the Black Budget - Honolulu Exopolitics | Examiner.com."
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