Everyone should read the Washington Post's recent effort in investigative reporting, Top Secret America. As a piece of journalism, it represents what actual journalism should be — not what passes for journalism in today's he-said-she-said creaming-heads world.
That said, the subject of the piece is distressing. Since George W. Bush, we've had this reckless, ridiculous, uncoordinated expansion of intelligence agencies, all sucking up tremendous sums of money, all with little oversight, and all producing floods of data…and it's all a waste because the emphasis is on sucking in lots of data, and little is done about comprehending it all.
Everyone should read the Washington Post's recent effort in investigative reporting, Top Secret America. As a piece of journalism, it represents whatactual journalism should be — not what passes for journalism in today's he-said-she-said creaming-heads world.
That said, the subject of the piece is distressing. Since George W. Bush, we've had this reckless, ridiculous, uncoordinated expansion of intelligence agencies, all sucking up tremendous sums of money, all with little oversight, and all producing floods of data…and it's all a waste because the emphasis is on sucking in lots of data, and little is done about comprehending it all.
In other words, the over-collection of data leads to a myopic view of things — an intelligence community where real threats don't get investigated because they're buried in a morass of data points.
Snippets:
- There are nearly 1,300 government organizations and 2,000 private companies working in 10,000 locations across the country.
- There are 854,000 people who have top-secret security clearances.
- There are 33 building complexes for top-secret work that are under construction or have been built just in Washington, DC since 9/11… totaling 17 million square feet of space.
- Analysts turn out 50,000 intelligence reports every year… you can bet many of them never get read.
- And, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11… that of course means hiring lots and lots of people. But don't ask where Osama bin Laden is… nobody knows.
UPDATE – Ezra adds another point:
And in case you think it'll be easy to roll any of this back, consider the fact that we still take our shoes off and throw away water bottles when we attempt to board a plane.