Saudi Arabia and the U.S. are strategic allies, and since President Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. has sold $110 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia. The National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 began cooperating with the Saudi Ministry of Interior in an effort to help ensure "regime continuity". An April 2013 top secret memo shows the agency's program of providing "direct analytic and technical support" to the Saudis on "internal security" matters. The CIA had already been gathering intelligence for the regime long before.