I have had growing concerns about the growing surveillance state in the USSA: The United Surveillance State of America. Apparently the Washington Post has them too.
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.
With the ineffectiveness of such unencumbered agency work as well as the unparalleled and unknown true cost of this growing secret "security" dark side, with no oversight, and with the unprecedented deficit, we have a huge problem. The Republican party is always ranting about reducing the size of government while they are funding the largest top secret buildup of hidden government right in plane sight. Let's reduce government. And this is where we need to start.
I do not trust my government at all.
Watch the trailer to the upcoming (Fall, 2010) PBS Frontline Special, Top Secret America at this link. Keep in mind that for a healthy democracy to work, it must function in the public forum. Tyranny lives in the shadows. What is the post USA democracy going to be?
PBS wbesite for Top Secret America.
Follow the story on Twitter @PostTSA
Use the hashtag #topsecretamerica
Related articles:
- Top Secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control (washingtonpost.com)
- WaPo Reveals "Top Secret America": How Post-9/11 System Is Not Working (mediaite.com)
- Wash Post's series on 'A hidden world, growing beyond control' (americablog.com)
- Top Secret America (slog.thestranger.com)
- WaPO Secret America, site up (warintel.blogspot.com)
Leave a comment