07-19-2010, 06:17
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#1
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: NorCal
Posts: 15,370
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Top Secret America
Top Secret America- a WaPo investigative series.
And so it goes...
Richard 
Part 1: A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control
WaPo, 19 July 2010
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.
These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
The investigation's other findings include:
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.
* 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.
* 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.
(cont'd) http://projects.washingtonpost.com/t...rica/articles/
Part 2: National Security Inc.
WaPo, 20 July 2010
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/t...-security-inc/
Part 3: The Secrets Next Door
WaPo, 21 July 2010
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/t...ets-next-door/
__________________
“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” - To Kill A Mockingbird (Atticus Finch)
“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” - Robert Heinlein
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Richard is offline
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07-19-2010, 07:37
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#2
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Area Commander
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Indianapolis
Posts: 2,086
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It's a conspiracy, Man....
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Daniel
GM1 USNR (RET)
Si vis pacem, para bellum
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Streck-Fu is offline
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07-19-2010, 10:58
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#3
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Wilson,NC
Posts: 1,506
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Knowledge is POWER! I have the knowledge, so to keep my power, I am not telling you!
Pretty much the way it has always worked isn't it?
__________________
"Solitude is strength; to depend on the presence of the crowd is weakness. The man who needs a mob to nerve him is much more alone than he imagines."
~ Paul Brunton (1898-1981)
R.D. Winters
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rdret1 is offline
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07-19-2010, 11:51
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#4
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Occupied Pineland
Posts: 4,701
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I'm having a hard time getting excited about this "revelation". While there is a point of concern, I seriously doubt the WaPo brings it up out of a sense of duty. And yes - redundancy in analysis is absolutely necessary. It tends to ensure that parochialism doesn't bury dissenting opinions. Do we need everything we have? Probably not. Is the WaPo qualified to pass judgement? Maybe - the day after hell freezes over.
__________________
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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Peregrino is offline
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07-19-2010, 11:53
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#5
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,813
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It occurs to me that someone leaking classified and the ones publishing it need to be prosecuted, go to jail, and be made an example.
Need to know? I do not think so.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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The Reaper is offline
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07-19-2010, 12:24
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#6
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Asset
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace
Posts: 54
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Quote:
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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.
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Top Secret has become so secretive  ....Isn't the point of something being top secret to prevent people without a need to know the information? The fact that the media gets there hands on this kind of stuff all of the time makes me 
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"The truth is I do not lose, however if it appears I have lost do not concede to the idea. It is merely a diversion that I may win with minimal effort while my enemy and his allies celebrate victory.”
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EasyIan is offline
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07-19-2010, 12:58
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#7
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Guerrilla
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 428
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Quote:
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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.
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Take out the words terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and insert; health care, failing financial institutions, companies, housing and job loss and it's almost scary.
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sf11b_p is offline
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07-19-2010, 13:27
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#8
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Auxiliary
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Conus
Posts: 69
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ODNI's response to WaPo series
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard
Top Secret America- a WaPo investigative series.
And so it goes...
Richard
A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control
WaPo, 19 July 2010
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.
These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
The investigation's other findings include:
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.
* 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.
* 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.
(cont'd) http://projects.washingtonpost.com/t...rica/articles/
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I just received this regarding the ODNI's response to the washington Post series
Please note the following two documents by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to the Washington Post series.
* A Q&A regarding intelligence practices and reform efforts post-9/11.
* Truth about Contractors dispels myths surrounding the Intelligence Community’s use of and relationship with contractors.
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"Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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Sierra Bravo is offline
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07-19-2010, 13:28
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#9
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Area Commander
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Indianapolis
Posts: 2,086
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrino
I'm having a hard time getting excited about this "revelation". While there is a point of concern, I seriously doubt the WaPo brings it up out of a sense of duty. And yes - redundancy in analysis is absolutely necessary. It tends to ensure that parochialism doesn't bury dissenting opinions. Do we need everything we have? Probably not. Is the WaPo qualified to pass judgement? Maybe - the day after hell freezes over.
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The more I look into what the WaPo is publishing, the less interested I become. I was actually a little surprised at the number of people having clearances as I expected it to be more. Any one in the military or government or contractor that may get a whiff of sensitive material will get a clearance. Many will never see a classified document in their career.
As for redundancy in analysis strongly recommended by hte 9/11 commission to eliminate the compartmentalization of information that prevented the threat assessment?
__________________
Daniel
GM1 USNR (RET)
Si vis pacem, para bellum
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Streck-Fu is offline
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07-21-2010, 12:57
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#10
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: NorCal
Posts: 15,370
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Updated with the URLs for all three articles now inserted into post #1 of this thread.
Richard
__________________
“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” - To Kill A Mockingbird (Atticus Finch)
“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” - Robert Heinlein
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Richard is offline
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07-22-2010, 18:06
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#11
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Guerrilla Chief
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Ft Benning
Posts: 707
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This was from the Post: "The existence of these clusters is so little known that most people don't realize when they're nearing the epicenter of Fort Meade's, even when the GPS on their car dashboard suddenly begins giving incorrect directions, trapping the driver in a series of U-turns, because the government is jamming all nearby signals."
What a bunch of BS...I use the Balt-Wash Parkway daily on my way into DC and have traveled Highway 32 without ever having problems with my GPS. Jamming the GPS freq range so close to BWI? Gimme a break.
Regarding the rest of the articles, is this stuff really news or is it "tabloid journalism"? Seriously, is the American public really interested in this stuff?
__________________
"I see that you notice that I wear glasses. Well, it was to be. I've not only grown old and gray, I've become almost blind in the service of my country." - General George Washington
"There are times in your life you'll be required to perform an exceedingly difficult task to the best of your ability, regardless of your perceived capability. Mental toughness is what will carry the day during these times. In other words, you suck it up and do what you have to do." - Razor
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lindy is offline
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