Yes, this is taxpayer money, but the thinking went that if the figure became public, the Soviet Union or the Chinese or Al Qaeda or Cobra Commander could nefariously infer how much money we spent on the CIA station in Sao Tome or something. Congress appropriated the money in secret. I’m not making this up. It went on for decades.

But then Michael McConnell became director of national intelligence! And he came up with a fairly smart strategy. McConnell could blatantly misrepresent the importance of the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program; demagogue the congressional debate about the program, and belittle the severity of waterboarding. But if he just declassified things that don’t really matter but are treated as if they possess Utmost National Importance, he’ll come out of the administration looking like a paragon of openness.

All of that is preamble and context for telling you that McConnell just sent me and all the other reporters on his press release a notice informing us that Congress devoted $47.5 billion to intelligence matters in fiscal 2008. But wait! There’s a caveat!

Any and all subsidiary information concerning the intelligence budget, whether the information concerns particular intelligence agencies or particular intelligence programs, will not be disclosed. Beyond the disclosure of the top-line figure, there will be no other disclosures of currently classified budget information because such disclosures could harm national security. The only exceptions to the foregoing are for unclassified appropriations, primarily for the Community Management Account.

That’s bureaucratese for “Don’t think this means I’m going to tell you how much money we spent on any particular program. The cost of my allergist’s Lexus is no more your business than is the price tag on our Death Ray.” Plus ca change.

In 2004, Gonzales was still President George W. Bush’s chief counsel. When Ashcroft did not give legal clearance for the then-secret National Security Agency surveillance program, the president held an “emergency meeting.”

At this meeting, the IG report says, Vice President Dick Cheney, then-NSA Director (now CIA Director) Michael Hayden and congressional leaders argued over the program’s lawfulness and whether it should continue. Gonzales took notes of the meeting– and then put them in a briefcase that he brought to his Vienna, Va., home.

The house, which Gonzales no longer lives in, had a safe. But Gonzales had forgotten its combination. A year later, when Gonzales became attorney general, he took the notes to his new Justice Dept. office. There, the documents were finally put in a safe — but not a “top secret” one, as legally required. Instead, they were stored where Justice Dept. employees could access them. Gonzales told the Justice IG this was OK, because he had written “AG-EYES ONLY-TOP SECRET” on the envelope that contained the notes.

The IG report also says Gonzales may have mishandled documents on detainee interrogation.

Meanwhile, the Justice Dept. has already said it won’t press charges against Gonzales.

The report doesn’t suggest Gonzales had any nefarious motive for not properly storing his notes. But, like the Justice’s politicized hiring report. it shows the former AG’s somewhat startling lack of professionalism.