Spy Curious

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Video: Today/NBC News

Angelina


Opened in theaters 7/23/10

Nikita


Coming this fall to the CW

And A Cast of Way Too Many Others

The Washington Post issued three installments of a series called Top Secret America, about the boom in government agencies and private companies dealing with intelligence and security in the years since the 9/11 attacks.

William M. Arkin, one of the authors of the series, explains that in order to wrap their heads around the issue, he and the staff of the Post had to build an enormous database with hundreds of thousands of documents culled from non-secret sources. New media observers are intrigued by the methodology as much as the subject... Intrigued by old media's integration of digital tools in the series' research and use of interactive elements to help tell the story.

Audio Embed: WNYC's On The Media 7/24/10, Host: Brooke Gladstone.

For those who don't want to read the full report, or can't wait for the TV version on PBS "Frontline" in October, Yahoo news provides this Executive Summary:

1. The U.S. intelligence system has exploded in size since the Sept. 11 attacks. Its budget was $75 billion last year, 2.5 times what it was before the attacks, and more than 850,000 people hold top-secret security clearances. More than 30 top-secret intelligence complexes have been built or are being built in the D.C. area since 2001, and at least 263 government intelligence organizations have been created or reorganized since 9/11.

2. Only a few officials in the Department of Defense have access to all of the top-secret activities and information. Two "super users" in the department told the Post that it's impossible for them to keep track of the mountains of top-secret info they're exposed to. "I'm not going to live long enough to be briefed on everything," one said.

3. Agencies are collecting so much data that they don't have enough translators or researchers to analyze it. Every day, the National Security Agency's systems "intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications."

4. Turf wars among agencies can prevent the sharing of information. Congress created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2004 so that someone would be in charge of the sprawling national intelligence apparatus. But Congress didn't give the director clear legal or budgetary control over all the agencies. As a result, the office, the Defense Department and the CIA have engaged in counterproductive power struggles.

5. This confusion has had real consequences. The reporters say secrecy and lack of coordination prevented intelligence workers from stopping an Army major's attack on Ft. Hood and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airplane last fall.

6. Contractors are not supposed to perform what federal rules define as "inherently government functions," but they do. In every single intelligence agency, contractors are performing the same functions as federal employees, and often for higher pay. Contractors for the CIA "have recruited spies in Iraq, paid bribes for information in Afghanistan and protected CIA directors visiting world capitals."

7. Out of the 854,000 people who have top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. That's about a third of the total workforce in the nation's intelligence agencies. About 2,000 small to mid size private companies do top-secret work.

8. The booming corporate intelligence industry is siphoning off the most skilled workers from the government with better pay and shiny bonuses. Contractors can offer twice as much money to experienced federal employees as the government can, and at least one corporate executive was spotted recruiting in the CIA's cafeteria during working hours.

9. Hiring contractors is also really expensive for the government, despite the Bush administration's hopes it would be cheaper than hiring more federal employees. "Contractors made up 29 percent of the workforce in the intelligence agencies but cost the equivalent of 49 percent of their personnel budgets," the Post says. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that federal workers are 25 percent cheaper than out-sourcing to private contractors.

10. Employees with top-secret clearance who work in a cluster of ordinary-looking office building outside of Washington must submit to strict rules. They take multiple lie-detector tests, are coached to avoid questions from neighbors and friends, and can lose their jobs for borrowing too much money or having friends from certain countries. Some assume false identities.