Congress Explicitly Grants Secrecy to the CIA
The 1949 Central Intelligence Act, passed on this day (two years after the creation of the agency in July 1947), explicitly granted the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) unprecedented exemption from federal laws on appropriations and expenditures, which would require disclosure of how the CIA spent its money.
The unprecedented secrecy granted to the CIA allowed the agency to engage in numerous abuses and violations of the values of American democracy. The full scope of CIA abuses were not made public until the Senate Church Committee investigation which began in 1975.
National Security Directive 10/2 in 1948, meanwhile, provided that CIA covert actions could not be attributed to the U.S. government.
Because federal expenditures are explicitly required by the Constitutionto be public matters, the constitutionality of the law was challenged by a taxpayer in United States v. Richardson. The Supreme Court rejected the challenge on June 25, 1974.
Learn more about the agency at the CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room.
Read the key provisions of this extraordinary law:
“(b) The sums made available to the Agency may be expended without regard to the provisions of law and regulations relating to the expenditure of Government funds; and for objects of a confidential, extraordinary, or emergency nature, such expenditures to be accounted for solely on the certificate of the Director and every such certificate shall be deemed a sufficient voucher for the amount therein certified.”But see what Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution says:
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”Read about the history of the CIA: Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (2007)
Read the biography of the CIA’s notorious spymaster, James Jesus Angleton: Jefferson Morley, The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton (2017)
Learn more: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008)
Read about the CIA’s secret funding of the National Student Association: Karen Paget, Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against Communism (2015)