WASHINGTON – It used to be a closely guarded secret, but the U.S. government disclosed Thursday for the first time in more than a decade what it spent on total intelligence gathering in the fiscal year that just ended: $80.1 billion.

That’s more than the United States spent on the Department of Homeland Security ($53 billion) and the Justice Department ($30 billion), according to figures from the White House Office of Management and Budget. It represents about 12 percent of the nation’s $664 billion defense budget.

The total intelligence budget has doubled since 2001, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement. “It is clear that the overall spending on intelligence has blossomed to an unacceptable level in the past decade,” said Feinstein, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, which sets the budget and oversees policy.

Intelligence spending figures have long been classified, but in 2007, the government began revealing part of what it spends to gather secrets — but only the amount not devoted purely to military operations. That figure was $52.1 billion for fiscal year 2010, which ended Sept. 30.