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Is it still "Top Secret"; when 854,000 people can get it?
Topic Started: Jul 19 2010, 06:11 AM (310 Views)
Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Washington Post article: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/

WaPo
 
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.
Read more at: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/

Even sadder that the fact that it happened is that I'm not surprised that it happened.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
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What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
So let's put them in charge of healthcare, they can't screw that up.
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
I've been told Big Government is the way to go...
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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The 89th Key
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While I *fully* agree that the system is so incredibly large, vague, expensive, nearly uncontrollable, full of employees looking to get by doing only what they need to do to keep their jobs and, just as important, get funding for the next year (as are most programs in the government)...ok, that was too long of a sentence. What I'm saying is I agree with all of that, but don't let the term "Top Secret" full you. It's not nearly as "top" as you can get, as I'm sure many folks in here know. It's really just one more clearance level to achieve to be able to work on various contracts. It gets much more "secret" than that, in which I'm sure the number of those who qualify would be much smaller.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
The whole 'Top Secret' thing is a bit like the 'Threat Level'. They have 5 levels or something, but the threat level is almost always in the top two, despite pretty much bugger all happening for a good 99.9% of the time.

I guess telling people that the threat level is 'low' would probably lead to too many lawsuits when something went wrong, like some fat bloke falling on top of children or something.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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1hp
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Fulla-Carp

Don't know if anyone remembers, but back in the early '90s it was deemed that too much information was deemed classified - way more than actually needed to be - and this was costing the government. So an attempt was made to actually only classify information that should really be withheld from public (ie our enemies) consumption.

Fast forward to today. I have been looking for full time engineering positions for 18 months now. There are pretty much no engineering jobs with military contractors that don't require the applicant to already hold a minimum of a Secret clearance (a catch 22 as one can't get a clearance unless working in a position that an employer can deem as necessary for the job, but one can't get the position these days unless one has a clearance). Those $100 toilet seats are getting more expensive, as they are now classified.

So yes, I suspect there are too many people with clearances which 1) dilutes the meaning of "Top Secret" and 2) implies that there are probably more leaks than ever as there is no way that the Feds can maintain background checks on that many persons.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
The whole thing sounds like something designed by Sir Humphrey Appleby.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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The 89th Key
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John D'Oh
Jul 19 2010, 06:59 AM
I guess telling people that the threat level is 'low' would probably lead to too many lawsuits when something went wrong, like some fat bloke falling on top of children or something.
Looks like this kid found out the hard way that the threat level was definitely still 'Orange'.

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