The Air Force just posted a $4.5 billion black ops project

The Air Force's Special Access Programs is the highest level of top secret USAF funding – and it just put out a juicy new request for proposals. The service wants to spend $4.5 billion and hire 1,000 employees to develop a program that would "provide physical security and cybersecurity services to safeguard its most sensitive information."

Billions spent just to counter all the Chinese people who have computers. Probably.

Sure, the price tag doesn't really compare to some of the other Air Force programs out there. The F-35 program cost a whopping id="listicle-2638759949".5 trillion over more than a decade. The penetrating counter air program, the F-35 successor, would cost more than three times that. So the Air Force is no stranger to spending tons of cash on secret weapons. This time, the secret is much less public than ever before.

Air Force Special Access Programs were once referred to as the USAF's "black programs," clandestine development budgets that few in government were totally informed about and had little Congressional oversight due to the classified nature of their work. This latest program, Security Support Services, falls within that budget.

There is so much money flying around in this photo.

For those who know what working in government programs entails, the job descriptions for the potential hires alone can tell us a lot about the sensitive nature of their impending work. Employees for the new program would have to have an active TS/SCI security clearance (one of the highest in government) with a polygraph examination. Taking a lie detector test is just one of many added security measures that not every Federal employee with a clearance has to do.

But they'll have to take it to work on USAF Security Support Services. Other duties will include: implement comprehensive security protocols to protect advanced technology programs throughout their life cycles, counterintelligence analysis, training, and investigations, and network monitoring and incident detection, response and remediation.

The Air Force's final request for proposals will be released on Aug. 8, 2019, – and that's all anyone needs to know.