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Top Secret America
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Top Secret America is a series of investigative articles published on the post-9/11 growth of the United States Intelligence Community
United States Intelligence Community
The United States Intelligence Community is a cooperative federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the...

. The report was first published in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

 on July 19, 2010, by Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning author Dana Priest
Dana Priest
Dana Priest is an American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Priest has worked almost 20 years for The Washington Post. As one of the Post's specialists on National Security she has written many articles on the United States' "War on terror." In 2006 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Beat...

 and William Arkin
William Arkin
William M. Arkin is an American political commentator, activist, journalist, blogger, and former United States Army soldier.-Biography:Arkin served in U.S. Army intelligence from 1974 to 1978...

.

The three-part series, which took nearly two years to research, was prepared with the assistance of more than a dozen journalists. It focuses on the expansion of secret intelligence departments within the government, and the outsourcing of services.

An online database
Online database
An online database is a database accessible from a network, including from the Internet.It differs from a local database, held in an individual computer or its attached storage, such as a CD....

 at TopSecretAmerica.com, as well as the articles to be published, were made available to government officials several months prior to the publications of the report. Each data point at the website was substantiated by at least two public records. The government was requested to advise of any specific concerns, but at that time, none were offered.

The Public Broadcasting System featured Priest and Arkin's work on Top Secret America in a September 6, 2011 broadcast of the news documentary series FRONTLINE.video That same month, the book "Top Secret America" was published by Little, Brown and Company.

Part 1 - A hidden world, growing beyond control

Published July 19, 2010, this first installment focuses on the U.S. intelligence system's growth and redundancies. It questions its manageability, as it 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." The report states that "An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances."

Part 2 - National Security Inc.

This segment, published on July 20, 2010, describes the widespread use by the U.S. of private contractors to fulfill essential intelligence functions, despite regulations prohibiting this. At present "close to 30 percent of the workforce in the intelligence agencies is contractors": 265,000 out of 854,000. "So great is the government's appetite for private contractors with top-secret clearances that there are now more than 300 companies, often nicknamed 'body shops,' that specialize in finding candidates, often for a fee that approaches $50,000 a person."

Part 3 - The secrets next door

Published on July 21, 2010, the third part provides accounts of individuals working within the field and focuses on the National Security Agency
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

.

Methodology

Hundreds of thousands of public records from government organizations and private-sector companies were consulted for this report, including 45 government organizations; these were broken down into 1,271 sub-units. Some 1,931 private companies were identified that engage in top-secret work for the government. For each company listed, employee data, revenue, and date of establishment were obtained from public filings, Dun & Bradstreet data, and original reporting.

Key findings

  • The report states that in approximately 10,000 locations aross the United States, 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies are employed. Their work is related to homeland security, counterterrorism, and intelligence.

  • More than two-thirds of these locations "reside" in the Department of Defense
    United States Department of Defense
    The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

    , where "only a handful of senior officials — called Super Users — have the ability to even know about all the department's activities."

  • An estimated 854,000 people hold top-secret security clearances.

  • The publicly announced cost of the U.S. intelligence system is "$75 billion, 2½ times the size it was on Sept. 10, 2001. But the figure doesn't include many military activities or domestic counterterrorism programs."

  • Since September, 2001, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are either under construction or have been built. The total area is approximately 17 million square feet, equivalent to about three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings.

  • Analysts within the agencies publish about 50,000 intelligence reports each year.

  • Every day, the National Security Agency
    National Security Agency
    The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

     intercepts and stores 1.7 billion phone calls, e-mails, and "other types of communications", but is able to sort only a "fraction" of these into 70 different databases.

Reaction

The Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) issued a notice to "industry partners" prior to the publication of the report reminding "cleared employees" of their "responsibility to protect classified information and relationships, and to abide by contractual agreements regarding non-publicity." The notice also states that:
"Employees should be reminded that they must neither confirm nor deny information contained in this, or any, media publication, and that the publication of this website does not constitute a change in any current ODNI classifications. They should also be reminded that if approached and asked to discuss their work by media or unauthorized people, they should report the interactions to their appropriate security officer."


Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

 spokesman Col. David Lapan stated on July 20, 2010, that redundancy within the U.S. intelligence community is a “well-known” problem. He told reporters:
“We’ve been fighting two wars since 9/11, and a lot of that growth in the intelligence community has come as a result of needed increases in intelligence collection and those types of activities to support two wars.”


White House press secretary
White House Press Secretary
The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....

 Robert Gibbs
Robert Gibbs
Robert Lane Gibbs was the 28th White House Press Secretary. Gibbs was the communications director for then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Obama's 2008 presidential campaign...

 stated:
"Well, look, I'm not going to get into some of the discussions that we had," Gibbs said. "Obviously there were some concerns. And I think the Post covered that there were some concerns, about certain data and the availability of some of that data."


Acting Director of National Intelligence, David C. Gompert about the report:
"The reporting does not reflect the Intelligence Community we know.

We accept that we operate in an environment that limits the amount of information we can share.
however, the fact is, the men and women of the Intelligence Community have improved our
operations, thwarted attacks, and are achieving untold successes every day."


Brendan Daly, Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...

's spokesperson said:
"The Speaker is working with the White House and her Congressional colleagues to ensure that Congress has strong, effective oversight of the intelligence community."


Senator Kit Bond
Kit Bond
Christopher Samuel "Kit" Bond is a former United States Senator from Missouri and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, he defeated Democrat Harriett Woods by a margin of 53%-47%. He was re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004...

 (R-Mo.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee remarked:
"We can do more to keep our nation safe, and improving Congressional oversight and ensuring the top spy chief has the authority needed to streamline our intelligence community are the first steps."

Further reading

  • The Agency That Could Be Big Brother
  • Sam Adams
    Samuel A. Adams
    Samuel A. Adams was an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency who is best known for discovering underestimated Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army troop numbers during the Vietnam War. He eventually retired from the CIA after claiming there was a conspiracy among officials within U.S....

    , War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir Steerforth; New Ed edition (June 1, 1998)
  • Walter Laqueur
    Walter Laqueur
    Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany , to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust...

    , A World of secrets
  • Sherman Kent
    Sherman Kent
    Sherman Kent, , was a Yale University history professor who, during World War II and through 17 years of Cold War-era service in the Central Intelligence Agency, pioneered many of the methods of intelligence analysis...

    , Strategic Intelligence for American Public Policy
  • Matthew Aid, The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency, 432 pages, ISBN 978-1596915152, Bloomsbury Press (June 9, 2009)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
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