Document of the Week: TopSecretAmerica.com

The Washington Post published part one of Dana Priest's and William Arkin's three-part investigative report today into the 854,000 people with Top Secret security clearances working for approximately 3200 government and private organizations in 10,000 locations across the United States. The story revealed that in the Washington, DC area, these operations utilize about 17 million square feet of office space, publishing 50,000 intelligence reports annually.

Conclusion: "...many are routinely ignored."

IMHO, this story is the tip of the iceberg, so one hopes that the authors might have a book coming out with more information. The only question I have is: Why did the Post's editors wait until 2009?

This sort of report might have helped had it come out in 2002, 2003, or 2004--before the US started losing "big time," to use a favorite phrase of Dick Cheney. Was it fear of the Bush administration? Was it a favor to them?

Perhaps CIA Leon Panetta or Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wanted this critique to come out, now.

It would appear so, at least from reading their mentions in the article. In which case, better late than never.

In any case: here's a link to the Post website for the complete story:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america.

And here's a link to the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/TopSecretAmerica.