So apparently this morning the Washington Post published an article about the Top Secret community across the USA and their findings of their 2 year investigation. As an IT professional this is very interesting to me as I have always been aware of TOP SECRET CLEARANCE jobs but was never able to apply to them.
Anyway, this article is also going to be made into a PBS Frontline show this fall as well.
FRONTLINE: Coming Soon: Top Secret America - the top secret world the government created in response to the 9/11 attacks | PBS
Will Arkin interview on DemocracyNow!
"Top Secret America" _Washington Post_ Investigation Reveals Massive, Unmanageable, Outsourced US Intelligence System
"Top Secret America includes hundreds of federal departments and agencies operating out of 1,300 facilities around this country. They contract the services of nearly 2,000 companies. In all, more people than live in our nation’s capital have top-secret security clearance. " - PBS Frontline
"Really the most significant finding, to me, is the number of private companies in America who have been enlisted in the war on terrorism and who have now become an intrinsic part of government, really where the line is blurred between government and private sector. And the fact that there are almost 2,000 companies that do top-secret work in—for the intelligence community and the military is not only surprising to me as someone who actually put together the data, but it really asks some fundamental questions about the nature of government and the nature of accountability. " - Will Arkin
"But today’s national security establishment really values information technology more than it values weapons.
And really, one of the things that was most surprising to us, but maybe not so surprising given the nature of society, is that a half of the companies in this particular area are really IT companies, information technology companies, and support companies. " - Will Arkin
That last part shocked me entirely as I had no idea that
private sector IT was at the forefront of guarding and protecting America's secrets and InfoSec systems.
Interesting to say the least...........raises some great questions about how logical it is for private corporations who have a profit motive obligation above patriotism to be involved in this field.
