United States, intelligence officers paid extra for knowing Russian

 United States, intelligence officers paid extra for knowing Russian

A former CIA and NSA agent Edward Snowden revealed the budget of U.S. intelligence in 2013. It turns out the agency spends more money than it’s been spending during the Cold War. Moreover, those who know Russian are paid more, RBC daily reports citing the Washington Post.

178-page report became available to the Washington Post. The report describes the budget and operations of the agency. According to the report, the secret service employs more than 107 thousand people. Although the U.S. government publishes the amount of funds allocated to the agency annually since 2007, the details of use of these funds have usually not been made public.

The total amount of the funds requested for 2013 amounted to 52.6 billion dollars. The real expenses are to be officially announced by September 30. It is interesting that about 3 thousand employees get paid extra money for knowing Spanish, and a little less than 1 thousand people- for their knowledge of Russian. French, Chinese, Arabic, German, Korean, Farsi and Portuguese are also in demand.

The newspaper calls the U.S. secret agencies «Empire of Espionage”. Since the events of September 11, 2001 U.S. have spent more than 500 billion dollars for its ‘empire’.

Edward Snowden – former CIA and NSA employee, told the Guardian and the Washington Post newspapers about working methods of the U.S. intelligence services. In particular about their collaboration with Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Skype and others. Snowden was put on the international wanted list by the U.S. authorities, who revoked his passport, so he spent a few weeks in Russia’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

Edward Snowden asked for political asylum in almost 30 countries, but Europe has denied him. Russia said that it is possible only under the condition that he will cease to interfere with “our American colleagues.” Snowden then found it unacceptable and rejected his request, but on July 12 he changed his mind and agreed to the terms of the Russian side. Snowden received documents of a refugee for a one year stay. He also got temporary registration in Moscow.