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Top Secret America
mahiskali writes "The Washington Post published an immense interactive website today, detailing the companies and government agencies currently doing top secret work in the United States. Everything from counter-IED operations to human intelligence is touched upon. Citing various interviews with 'super users' and through exhaustive analysis of public records for over two years, this interactive site allows users to peer into the guarded world of top secret intelligence. With more than 854,000 people currently holding a TS clearance, has the defense and intelligence world grown too big, too fast? Or has this large growth served us well, exemplified by no successful terrorist acts on US soil since 9/11? How can we judge the success of these programs, when much of it will never be known by the general public?"
How can we judge the success of these programs, when much of it will never be known by the general public?
I thought the effectiveness of intelligence and homeland security spending were periodically reported on and covered by the GAO? Then you'd get congressional hearings on bad years and large contracts like the FBI's Virtual Case File System (complete failure)?
Seems to be a lot of hype. Yeah, we know the contractors soak up a lot of your tax dollars. Yeah, I know you can use black and white footage to make it look evil and interview your own reporters to sell newspapers and ads. You might be correct saying that there has been too much spending since 9/11 on this stuff but how does revealing contracts and small businesses associated with the government help this situation?
Also, I'd like to point out that this appears to be a three part story running Mon-Tues-Wed with a PBS Frontline one hour special on it. Evidently, PBS and the WP think the little stuff you know about national security is going to aid you in your decision to determine whether or not your tax dollars are being appropriately spent. Good luck.
My work here is dung.
FTFY
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Or has this large growth served us well, exemplified by no successful terrorist acts on US soil since 9/11?"
The day after 9/11 I found a rock. I've kept this rock with me every day since then. Could it be more that this rock prevents terrorism?
Will people ever learn that correlation does not imply causation?
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
That number mey be exaggerated; it's possible it includes me, as I held a TS clearance in the USAF almost 40 years ago. It may even be likely. Just because a person holds a clearance doesn't mean they actually know anything, even with a clearance you're only briefed on a "need to know" basis. If it does include me, it includes anyone who was ever stationed at Utapao, Thailand during the Vietnam war, since some secret recon gear was there. It also likely includes anyone who was ever stationed at a SAC base.
If this is so, 854k people doesn't seem quite so outrageous; it may sinply be the people still living who were investigated, cleared, and trained (you have to get training to get a TS clearance).
Free Martian Whores!
Or has this large growth served us well, exemplified by no successful terrorist acts on US soil since 9/11?
Is the submitter a complete idiot? remember those little letters full of Anthrax much?
Why do people keep saying this? its a completely weird oversight, especially as it was never credibly settled.
The site statistics and information are incredibly misleading. Simply because 1m hold TS clearance, or the right to gain TS clearance for an SCI level job, does not mean 1m people are actively working in the industry.
With so many contractors such as Lockheed, CSC, OAO, etc... you have thousands which may hold clearance but they are not at the moment on a project. When I was working for CSC, in the span of a few years, I was on a dozen different projects. Some non-classified, some were. Not all were for the Gov't. I still had to hold a clearance.
Some were for the Gov't but totally benign in terms of what was worked on.
There is a massive amount of infrastructure to run all Gov't ops, bases, local and state Gov't. Even if you want to be a janitor in many places, you have to qualify for a clearance.
If you want to run fiber or copper cabling between buildings which house classified projects, you need to have a clearance.
To be a receptionist at many facilities, you need to have a clearance.
The information leads the reader to think that all 1m with TS clearance are working at the moment on nefarious projects for an evil government. While the reality is, most are simply support staff doing work that if it were any other customer, would be easily overlooked and thought down on.
This is just another Washington Post scaremongering article by someone who makes their living off of the people she is claiming are too many in number.
> Or has this large growth served us well, exemplified by no successful terrorist acts on US soil since 9/11?
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm!
Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, dad.
Homer: Why thank you, honey.
Lisa: By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Hmm. How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn’t work; it’s just a stupid rock!
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Hmm... Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
For most Americans, the day after 9/11 they found Iraq.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Huge terrorist plots bringing down buildings are rare. The PETN bomber, for example, needed a steel detonator that could compress a sizable charge of PETN significantly, otherwise PETN just burns; but getting that kind of thing into airport security is hard, even pre-9/11, since they're bulky and steel and complex and obviously bombs. Taking over a plane is hard, too; seriously, box cutters aren't necessary when you can turn a shoe lace into a strangling tool and take a stewardess hostage.
Really, they were rare before 9/11; remember the Oklahoma thing, ad the 2 prior attempts on the new york trade centers. They're rare now.
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They're kind of like the TSA... the "war on terrorism" provided an excuse for a grandstanding president with little intelligence to look like a "great statesman" by creating more, bigger government agencies that will have limited usefulness and will never shrink on their own. After all, their creation was an opportunity for elected officials to both appear to be "doing something" about terrorism and to spend a lot of money on their constituents, helping ensure their re-election.
It's a natural human impulse to think "more is better" or "bigger is better"... I'm starting to think it's biologically rooted. At any rate, combining all the intelligence agencies into one big organization only works if all the people involved are egoless, if they all are willing to work together, and if they all don't care if they have a job tomorrow. Most people can't do this, and the folks in charge at these agencies are the ones least likely to be able to do so, especially since many of them are government appointed or union.
The worst part is that many of the people involved with these efforts truly believe that they are doing the Right Thing, that they are the best defense against "another 9/11" and that they must be allowed to continue regardless of whether the US has the money or whether our existing laws stand in their way.
Submitted for your consideration: Which was worse for our country... the 9/11 attack and the aftermath, or the wars, restrictions, loss of freedoms, and problems created by our own government in response to it?
I never believed that 9/11 was anything but a horrible crime. No less than that, but certainly no more than that...
PS: Taco, this beta release of the comments editing software needs finishing...
There have been numerous terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11, two successful (e.g., Fort Hood, Little Rock) and the rest foiled only by the attackers' own incompetence (e.g., Shoebomber, Pantybomber, Times Square).
I would argue that SECRECY was more profound during eras like World War II when things like the "Loose Lips Sink Ships" posters were in public areas like commercial shopping places and the general public was warned about not communicating ANY info about local projects like scrap drives to anyone they didn't trust.
As a note, I hold a clearance and most of the stuff that is classified is just ridiculous. Of course, there is the problem of classification due to aggregation of info, but seriously, most people would not believe what the majority of classified information encompasses.
How do you measure effectiveness indeed? An attack that never occurs can never be proven to have been prevented, only attacks that actually occur can be reviewed by civilians. So that might skew the perception, but it's the only way to rate effectiveness.
The most recent example of a terrorist attack on US soil would be 9/11, and we know some things about the involvements of government agencies there:
- First of all they (CIA) funded, armed and trained the people responsible (although decades before, it had a measurable influence)
- After that their 'betrayal' and international covert operations (or more in general US involvement abroad) are mentioned by terrorist organizations as a mayor reason for their war on the US
- And last but not least these agencies knew of an impending attack prior to 9/11 and failed to protect the civilians
So according to my score they failed miserably! Given the absence of proof to the contrary it looks like the larger the (counter)intelligence in a country is the more likely that country will become involved in international terrorism and other unwanted unintended consequences. I'm really glad the Netherlands where I live does not have such massive covert operations, if the US is the example to go by it would probably cause more problems for us than it would ever solve...
Yes, the terrorists attack the number 0.81818181818181818181818181818182 all the time. I rounded it up to prevent any real damage to the poor little thing.
Free Martian Whores!
exemplified by no successful terrorist acts on US soil since 9/11?
So we're the anthrax attacks no terrorist acts?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There has been no 9/11 since 9/11 BUT there also was no 9/11 BEFORE 9/11
The point is, terrorists are NOT like regular soldiers who are expected to keep up a steady attack to defeat the enemey. All a terrorist has to do is create terror. As long as you are afraid of a terrorist, the terrorist has done his job.
Or to turn the roles around, partisans who fought the germans were NOT judged on the number of germans they killed but on how many german soldiers they kept away from the front lines. The allies played this game to great effect, weakening the german army by forcing them to fight on all fronts at the same time. Every soldier that had to patrol "safe" ground was a soldier not fighting the allies. That is PART of the reason for city bombardments, every AA gun defending cities was not blowing up tanks.
So, how have terrorist managed to affect the US BEFORE 9/11 and AFTER 9/11?
There have been terror attacks before including on US targets, but the average US citizen failed to be afraid of them... well except for celebs being afraid to fly to europe from time to time.
Post 9/11 the average US citizen, or at least the people who claim to speak for them, have become afraid. Job done as far as the terrorists are concerned. No succesful new attacks are needed. They might even be counter productive. Shoe bomber and the nigerian just harm the cause because they look silly and you might get the Israel effect, were the population doesn't care anymore and just votes to have muslims shot on sight (move to far right in Israely politics). Last thing the terrorists want is to really piss of the US to the point that nukes start flying. Turn the desert to glass would solve the whole problem in one go.
To many attacks and terror looses its meaning, people just demand vengeance. See the total failure of city bombings in europe to demoralize the public. Nukes were needed in Japan to achieve it. 8 million vietnamese citizens killed by the US and the US still lost that war. Terror is overrated in volume. Small attacks that are rare but people still think could happen any moment are scary.
Think Doom 3. Yeah yeah, lights go out, I turn around and BOOM BOOM, dead enemy. Yawn.
There have been failed and successful attack before 9/11 and after. Most likely all the security isn't changing the numbers in any real way.
And it doesn't have to be in the US. If the madrid bombings stopped US citizens from travelling abroad: Mission accomplished.
That is way a handful of terrorists/freedom fighters can tie up a large army... and why armies fighting them often resort to killing civilians in retribution.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"With more than 854,000 people currently holding a TS clearance"
That is a lot of people.
Their is no way they keep much secret with that many people having access to it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
exemplified by no successful terrorist acts on US soil since 9/11?
So we're the anthrax attacks no terrorist acts?
I think what the OP meant was that there have been no successful terrorist attacks committed by terrorist groups or organizations. Groups imply that communications need to occur and support sought all of which are possible to detect and counter. The anthrax attacks and terrorist attacks like that of Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood were "lone wolf" attacks that are very difficult to detect or counter since they lack those communications or support channels that could be used to detect the planning of such an attack.
Listen, USA spends more than how many nations combined on "defense" ?
It's time to END THE MADNESS now. Call your senators, representatives, neighbors, priests, doctors, whoever you think may have a pulse and explain why we should cut our defense spending today.
America's infrastructure is crumbling, the top 1% are laughing, the rest of us are in trouble.
Not to mention massive spending and inconvenience that is security theatre. Remember, the aim of terrorism isn't necessarily to cause physical harm, it's just to spread terror. If they can do that without lifting a finger, that's a major win. A nation in fear, or being forced to jump through security hoops, is already suffering the effects of terrorist actions, regardless of when the last real attack took place.
Reminds me of the following scene from The Simpson's:
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is working like a charm!
Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, dad. By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Hmm. How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn’t work, it’s just a stupid rock!
Homer: Uh-huh.
Homer (after a moment's thought): Lisa, I want to buy your rock
It could well be that the ridiculous sums of money spent on "Homeland Security" (a phrase that creeps the fuck out of me) is indeed money well spent. But please allow me to posit that the terrorist threat is actually McCarthy-esque bogeyman. Nevertheless, if the people of the US truly want to be (as opposed to feel) more safe, the best policy just might be to refrain from meddling in other countries' affairs quite so much...
Actually, all this focus on "it must have worked because there were no attacks after" ignores a crucial point: there haven't actually been foreign terror attacks in the USA _before_ 9/11 for a very long time. You know, _before_ all those idiotic constitution violations in the name of security.
Even looking at it dispassionately, I'd want basically to see someone disprove the null hypothesis if they sell me some miracle solution for anything. What is the situation with and _without_ their miracle cure? The before and after?
The last major terror attack _before_ 9/11 was the Oklahoma City bombing, in 1995. (It also wasn't done by islamists, arabs, heathens, illegal immigrants, or the other scarecrows, but by two all-American nutters with a crazy right wing agenda. And I don't mean "right wing" as in "nazi", but the kind that goes "OMG, government is evil, gun control is evil, law enforcement is evil, load your guns and run for the hills!!!eleventeen")
The only things happening in between, and most of the stuff before 1995 too, were attacks abroad, which still haven't been stopped by the USA's giving up civil rights to stop the terrorists.
The main major terror show before that was the unabomber, who pretty much was the main show for the USA between 1978 and 1995, though not immediately and only managing to cause 3 fatalities. (And again it actually was a lone nutter who had no accomplices, belonged to no organization, and hadn't even told anyone about it. And he was a third-generation American at that. So neither much to infiltrate there, nor any profiling that would have helped.)
Look, when talking about events that rare, making a big fuss out of a short interval without them is stupid. (Although it's also false that there were none afterwards.)
I'm given the mental image of a couple of peasants who discover an elephant run away from a circus on their land. So they make up a stupid and inconvenient ritual for keeping elephants away, and unsurprisingly they never see an elephant on their land for 9 years straight. So they conclude that the ritual obviously works, and they must keep doing it every day. But the fact that they had also never seen an elephant on their land _before_ that ritual even existed, is lost on them.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I shall point out to you that you wrote your post in English. No need to thank my country or my ancestors for that, you're welcome! Or perhaps you are of the sort that would prefer the world to speak German?
Russia is probably owed as much for the defeat of the Nazis as the Americans.
I shall also point out that Islam seeks power and money, and that I am not sure one would find either in any of the "countries" you listed.
Islam seeks submission to God. That's what the word Islam means. People seek power and money. For instance, Saudi Arabia is a theocracy, but it's a US Ally, because it's leaders seek money and power. (Remember GW Bush holding hands with the Saudi Crown Prince?)
If you wanted to knock terrorism into last century, you'd have to do two things: leave Iraq and Afghanistan, and form a new Manhattan style project to harvest energy directly to the sun to end our oil addiction. Of course, those things are nearly impossible for the US to do, since it only seeks power and money.
Here you go.
Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism coordinator at the time, has revealed details of a meeting the day after the attacks during which officials considered the US response. Already, he said, they were certain al-Qa'ida was to blame and there was no hint of Iraqi involvement. "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq," Mr Clarke said. "We all said, 'No, no, al-Qa'ida is in Afghanistan.'"
But Mr Clarke, who is expected to testify on Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, said Mr Rumsfeld complained in the meeting that "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq." A spokesman for Mr Rumsfeld last night said he could not comment immediately.
Paranoid terrorism is US foreign policy in a nutshell. The only difference between Osama bin Laden threatening to destroy America and the United States threatening to destroy Iran is that we can actually do it.
Islamic fundamentalists love the US War on Terror. They get to train against our soldiers, drum up support from places where they had none before, like Iraq, and use our degraded moral standards in their propaganda. The moment we kidnapped and tortured a single human being, we lost the war on terror. We proved that we are no different from any other totalitarian state. We may claim to support human rights and democracy, but if your vote includes someone we don't approve of, we've got no problem with assassinations, economic warfare, or outright war.
"But, that's the only thing 'these people' understand!" Yeah, right.
Terrorism doesn't have to have the bomb explode. It's mere presense makes for a successful attack. Was the "Times Square Bomber" successful? The answer is YES, HE WAS -- because it created a sense of "terror" to the population. The "bomb" didn't have to explode. In fact, the bomb couldn't have "exploded" because it was so poorly built, the best it could have done was burn brightly. It would have been a car-fire and nothing more, the kind you see on the Cross-Bronx expressway almost every day and ignore.
But because it was reported as a "bomb", the populace was scared. Job done. Terror is created. The Media and the Government create more "Terror" than the actual terrorists do.
Successful attack? It doesn't matter if the 'bomb' explodes or not. Frankly, it doesn't matter if there's even a bomb at all. Just the "act" of terrorism in any way that gets the population to be scared, change their travel plans, worry about their homes, run out and buy duct-tape and plastic sheeting, build bomb shelters, yadda-yadda, is a *successful attack* because it's done the job intended.
And the job is to CHANGE OUR BEHAVIOR. Spend money on security theater. Waste our time fearing the bogeyman.
Job done. Successfully. Every time.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Top Secret is not a very high level of clearance anymore. It hasn't been for a while. TS is essentially the entry level of clearance.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It's a common error to say that correlation does not imply causation. In fact, correlation need not imply causation. There's a subtle difference here, because sometimes correlation does imply causation--that is, when there is a reasonable causal link. A better way to put it is that correlation doesn't prove causation. At best, it gives you a clue that can then be followed up on. But it's the height of foolishness to say that trillions of dollars spent on the suppression of terror has no link whatsoever to ... ahem ... the suppression of terrorist attacks. The two are correlated, and the two might be causally linked. The correlation gives us a clue to look for a causal link. It doesn't prove the causal link, by itself, but it is one piece of evidence that points in that direction. And, more importantly, if there was no correlation, it could disprove it.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1