Dana Priest and William R. Arkin from the Washington Post have written a three-part series, Top Secret America, on our nation's national security and intelligence system. The first line sets the tone:
The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.This series had been creating a lot of buzz before it was even published. And, no doubt, it will create much more now. Among the findings:
* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.Feel safe? One expert consulted in this series state that there's no way to tell if we're safer now.
* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.
The first installment is well worth reading.
