http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDLVCyCm1ck
1300 government sites nationwide and 2000 more private contractors. No one knows who is doing what.
The Post said its investigation also found that:
_In the area around Washington, 33 building complexes – totaling some 17 million square feet of space – for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since 9/11.
_Many intelligence agencies are doing the same work, wasting money and resources on redundancy.
_So many intelligence reports are published each year that many are routinely ignored.
"There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that – not just for the DNI, but for any individual, for the director of the CIA, for the secretary of defense – is a challenge," Gates told the Post.
854,000 people now have top secret clearance.
Read about this.
We've invented a monster we can't see! :lulz:
MAD SCIENCE!
http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/greenwald/~3/IFF23rRwqsw/secrecy
This article also has pertinent info and links
QuoteThe Washington Post's Dana Priest demonstrates once again why she's easily one of the best investigative journalists in the nation -- if not the best -- with the publication of Part I of her series, co-written with William Arkin, detailing the sprawling, unaccountable, inexorably growing secret U.S. Government: what the article calls "Top Secret America." To the extent the series receives much substantive attention (and I doubt it will), the focus will likely be on the bureaucratic problems it documents: the massive redundancies, overlap, waste, and inefficiencies which plague this "hidden world, growing beyond control" -- as though everything would better if Top Secret America just functioned a bit more effectively. But the far more significant fact so compellingly illustrated by this first installment is the one I described last week when writing about the Obama administration's escalating war on whistle blowers:
QuoteMost of what the U.S. Government does of any significance -- literally -- occurs behind a vast wall of secrecy, completely unknown to the citizenry. . . . Secrecy is the religion of the political class, and the prime enabler of its corruption. That's why whistle blowers are among the most hated heretics. They're one of the very few classes of people able to shed a small amount of light on what actually takes place.
Virtually every fact Priest and Arkin disclose underscores this point. Here is their first sentence: "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." This all "amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight." We chirp endlessly about the Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, but this is the Real U.S. Government: functioning in total darkness, beyond elections and parties, so secret, vast and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person or even any organization.
The one thing that really got my attention is the fact that so many intelligence reports are generated that many are routinely ignored now.
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 20, 2010, 05:34:01 PM
The one thing that really got my attention is the fact that so many intelligence reports are generated that many are routinely ignored now.
Too much information can be worse than not enough.
2 billion emails and calls are intercepted and stored every day.
Its fun, watching the intelligence services try to bludgeon themselves to death with so much useless info. This is like watching a retard try to memorize every entry on Wikipedia in one sitting.
Anyone who thinks that's hyperbole should just read some of what Priest and Arkin chronicle. Consider this: "Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications." To call that an out-of-control, privacy-destroying Surveillance State is to understate the case. Equally understated is the observation that we have become a militarized nation living under an omnipotent, self-perpetuating, bankrupting National Security State. Here's but one flavoring anecdote:
Command centers, internal television networks, video walls, armored SUVs and personal security guards have also become the bling of national security.
"You can't find a four-star general without a security detail," said one three-star general now posted in Washington after years abroad. "Fear has caused everyone to have stuff. Then comes, 'If he has one, then I have to have one.' It's become a status symbol."
:lulz:
Quote from: Cain on July 20, 2010, 05:39:15 PM
2 billion emails and calls are intercepted and stored every day.
Its fun, watching the intelligence services try to bludgeon themselves to death with so much useless info. This is like watching a retard try to memorize every entry on Wikipedia in one sitting.
That's why I'm not terribly worried about the police state. Like everything else America does in the realm of intelligence work, we fuck it up so badly that it just isn't scary.
But as I wrote many times back then -- often by interviewing and otherwise citing House Intelligence Committee member Rush Holt, who has been making this point repeatedly -- the more secret surveillance powers we vest in the Government, the more we allow the unchecked Surveillance State to grow, the more unsafe we become. That's because the public-private axis that is the Surveillance State already collects so much information about us, our activities and our communications -- so indiscriminately and on such a vast scale -- that it cannot possibly detect any actual national security threats. NSA whistle blower Adrienne Kinne, when exposing NSA eavesdropping abuses, warned of what ABC News described as "the waste of time spent listening to innocent Americans, instead of looking for the terrorist needle in the haystack." As Kinne put it:
By casting the net so wide and continuing to collect on Americans and aid organizations, it's almost like they're making the haystack bigger and it's harder to find that piece of information that might actually be useful to somebody. You're actually hurting our ability to effectively protect our national security.
The Beast is eating itself.
So, basically, all a terrorist really needs to do is learn how to craft their messages to look like noise, but embed some kind of code that contains the signal.
Virtually every time the political class reveals some Scary New Event, it demands and obtains greater spying authorities (and, of course, more and more money). And each time that happens, its ability to detect actually relevant threats diminishes.
OH Goodie! A new Meme.
Quote from: RWHN on July 20, 2010, 05:50:16 PM
So, basically, all a terrorist really needs to do is learn how to craft their messages to look like noise, but embed some kind of code that contains the signal.
The Government did not fail to detect the 9/11 attacks because it was unable to collect information relating to the plot. It did collect exactly that, but because it surveilled so much information, it was incapable of recognizing what it possessed ("connecting the dots").
From Cains link.
Quote from: RWHN on July 20, 2010, 05:50:16 PM
So, basically, all a terrorist really needs to do is learn how to craft their messages to look like noise, but embed some kind of code that contains the signal.
Mohammed Atta sent his coded messages about 9/11 as emails to his girlfriend about where he was going and what he was doing while holidaying in Germany and, later, America.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 20, 2010, 05:44:34 PM
Quote from: Cain on July 20, 2010, 05:39:15 PM
2 billion emails and calls are intercepted and stored every day.
Its fun, watching the intelligence services try to bludgeon themselves to death with so much useless info. This is like watching a retard try to memorize every entry on Wikipedia in one sitting.
That's why I'm not terribly worried about the police state. Like everything else America does in the realm of intelligence work, we fuck it up so badly that it just isn't scary.
Yes and no. It seems on the collection and analysis side, there is more possibility of being picked up by accident than anything else. At the same time, the paramilitary/covert ops seem to know what they're doing...but then again mindless violence isn't exactly difficult because, if it was, they wouldn't trust soldiers and spies with it.
Meanwhile, the Real U.S. Government -- the network of secret public and private organizations which comprise the National Security and Surveillance State -- expands and surveills and pilfers and destroys without much attention and with virtually no real oversight or accountability. It sucks up the vast bulk of national resources and re-directs the rest to those who own and control it. To their immense credit, Dana Priest and William Arkin will spend the week disclosing the details of what they learned over the past two years investigating all of this, but the core concepts have long been glaringly evident. But Sarah Palin's Twitter malapropism from yesterday will almost certainly receive far more attention than anything exposed by the Priest/Arkin investigation. So we'll continue to fixate on the trappings and theater of government while The Real Government churns blissfully in the dark -- bombing and detaining and abducting and spying and even assassinating -- without much bother from anyone.
Damn, Cain. That link has a hell of a lot of meat in it, thanks.
Dok, i would be remiss to say that i wasn't afraid of the police/surveillance state simply because it is unable to cull threats from the mountain of data. It is still scary because if anyone in that monster decides they don't like you, they can search the mountain of data to find crap to put you away with.
Even if it's hard to find an unknown unknown from the data, it isn't hard to find info to pin on a specific person, i would wager.
also, i would say that i used to think security clearance was something special.
it's not.
i've got secret clearance, and there's got to be at least a hundred in my company that have top secret. and we're just a flight simulator company...
Now I wonder how this compares to the former Soviet Union.
Quote from: Iptuous on July 20, 2010, 06:14:08 PM
Dok, i would be remiss to say that i wasn't afraid of the police/surveillance state simply because it is unable to cull threats from the mountain of data.
I'm not afraid of them, because they're
dumb. And because I refuse to be afraid of statists, particularly incompetent ones.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 20, 2010, 06:17:29 PM
I'm not afraid of them, because they're dumb. And because I refuse to be afraid of statists, particularly incompetent ones.
dumb and weilding power. fear is not necessarily weakness. i think fear is appropriate in this case.
y'know. the kind of fear that compels an animal to strike down a threat.
Quote from: Iptuous on July 20, 2010, 06:19:59 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 20, 2010, 06:17:29 PM
I'm not afraid of them, because they're dumb. And because I refuse to be afraid of statists, particularly incompetent ones.
dumb and weilding power. fear is not necessarily weakness. i think fear is appropriate in this case.
y'know. the kind of fear that compels an animal to strike down a threat.
I think it's funny, though, which I feel is more appropriate.
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 20, 2010, 06:16:39 PM
Now I wonder how this compares to the former Soviet Union.
The KGB managed twice as much on half the budget. But then they were
smart.
Quote from: Cain on July 20, 2010, 06:26:45 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 20, 2010, 06:16:39 PM
Now I wonder how this compares to the former Soviet Union.
The KGB managed twice as much on half the budget. But then they were smart.
Good point.
The Mitrokhin Archive and Oleg Kalugin's biography tend to show that when it came to covert action, infiltration and information gathering, the KGB were a cut above pretty much everyone else.
Quote from: Cain on July 20, 2010, 06:46:24 PM
The Mitrokhin Archive and Oleg Kalugin's biography tend to show that when it came to covert action, infiltration and information gathering, the KGB were a cut above pretty much everyone else.
I think here "Doing Something About It" has been confused to throwing money at it. In everything.
As far as National Security it seems we have used the shotgun effect but we fired far too many rounds. Our focus has scattered to the winds and oddly it may be our saving grace.
What? One can always hope. Can't they?
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 20, 2010, 06:53:16 PM
Quote from: Cain on July 20, 2010, 06:46:24 PM
The Mitrokhin Archive and Oleg Kalugin's biography tend to show that when it came to covert action, infiltration and information gathering, the KGB were a cut above pretty much everyone else.
I think here "Doing Something About It" has been confused to throwing money at it. In everything.
As far as National Security it seems we have used the shotgun effect but we fired far too many rounds. Our focus has scattered to the winds and oddly it may be our saving grace.
What? One can always hope. Can't they?
Of course. By now, all these organizations are dedicating all their time to spying on each other.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 20, 2010, 06:55:19 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 20, 2010, 06:53:16 PM
Quote from: Cain on July 20, 2010, 06:46:24 PM
The Mitrokhin Archive and Oleg Kalugin's biography tend to show that when it came to covert action, infiltration and information gathering, the KGB were a cut above pretty much everyone else.
I think here "Doing Something About It" has been confused to throwing money at it. In everything.
As far as National Security it seems we have used the shotgun effect but we fired far too many rounds. Our focus has scattered to the winds and oddly it may be our saving grace.
What? One can always hope. Can't they?
Of course. By now, all these organizations are dedicating all their time to spying on each other.
I tried but I just can't get myself to doubt this.
I'm in the wrong business. This intelligence shit sounds like so much fun.
Sig,
if everything is as convoluted, bureaucratic, and having money blasted at it as from a fully automatic shotgun like portrayed in this thread, then there is surely a way that you can put in for funding for a private contract intelligence company, thus starting an official Discordian Intelligence Disorganization...
I'll poke around. There's got to be a way I can get a piece of this action.
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 20, 2010, 07:02:46 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 20, 2010, 06:55:19 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 20, 2010, 06:53:16 PM
Quote from: Cain on July 20, 2010, 06:46:24 PM
The Mitrokhin Archive and Oleg Kalugin's biography tend to show that when it came to covert action, infiltration and information gathering, the KGB were a cut above pretty much everyone else.
I think here "Doing Something About It" has been confused to throwing money at it. In everything.
As far as National Security it seems we have used the shotgun effect but we fired far too many rounds. Our focus has scattered to the winds and oddly it may be our saving grace.
What? One can always hope. Can't they?
Of course. By now, all these organizations are dedicating all their time to spying on each other.
I tried but I just can't get myself to doubt this.
Celine's Laws demand it.
Hey, not
everything RAW wrote was garbage...
Heh...
lookie what my just came in my mailbox here at work:
Quote07/16/2010
Defense Security Service (DSS) Notice to Cleared Companies
Subject: Potential Disclosure of Contract Information
Early next week, we expect the Washington Post to publish articles and an interactive
website that will likely identify government agencies and contractors allegedly
conducting Top Secret work. The website is expected to enable users to see the
relationships between the federal government and its contractors, describe the type of
work the contractors perform, and may identify many government and contractor facility
locations.
Publication is expected starting on or about July 19, 2010, with additional articles
published thereafter. We anticipate the article series and website will generate follow-on
national media interest, as well as media interest in the local cleared companies.
If approached by any media outlets regarding these articles or website, please be mindful
of the public release provisions stated in Block 12 of the Contract Security Classification
Specification (DD Form 254) issued with each of your contracts that involve access to
classified information. Any public release of information regarding classified contracts
requires review by and approval of your Government Contracting Activity, except as
authorized by Paragraph 5-511 of the National Industrial Security Program Operating
Manual (NISPOM), DoD 5220.22-M.
Should your management or public affairs offices be contacted by the media, if
appropriate, you may refer media inquiries to Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Public Affairs at 703-697-5131.
We recognize that this information can be put to legitimate use. However, without a
doubt, foreign intelligence services, terrorist organizations, and criminal elements will
also have interest in this kind of information. It is important that companies continually
review their overall security posture to ensure that it meets required standards. We
recommend that companies affected by this publication and website assess, and take steps
to mitigate, risk to their workforce, facility and operations. These steps should include
reinforcement of security and counterintelligence (CI) protections, and a dedicated effort
to enhance workforce awareness of threats. This is also a good opportunity to review the
contents of your website to ensure that it does not contain information for which you
should have received prior release approval. Security and CI events related to the
publication of these articles and website should be reported through normal company
channels to your Facility Security Officer and DSS Industrial Security Representative.
If you have any questions, requests for specific guidance, and/or want to report any
unusual activity, please don't hesitate to have your Facility Security Officer work with
the local DSS Industrial Security representative. DSS is committed to working with
companies to safeguard classified information.
Kathy Watson
Director
Quote from: Iptuous on July 20, 2010, 08:30:11 PM
Heh...
lookie what my just came in my mailbox here at work:
Quote07/16/2010
Defense Security Service (DSS) Notice to Cleared Companies
Subject: Potential Disclosure of Contract Information
Early next week, we expect the Washington Post to publish articles and an interactive
website that will likely identify government agencies and contractors allegedly
conducting Top Secret work. The website is expected to enable users to see the
relationships between the federal government and its contractors, describe the type of
work the contractors perform, and may identify many government and contractor facility
locations.
Publication is expected starting on or about July 19, 2010, with additional articles
published thereafter. We anticipate the article series and website will generate follow-on
national media interest, as well as media interest in the local cleared companies.
If approached by any media outlets regarding these articles or website, please be mindful
of the public release provisions stated in Block 12 of the Contract Security Classification
Specification (DD Form 254) issued with each of your contracts that involve access to
classified information. Any public release of information regarding classified contracts
requires review by and approval of your Government Contracting Activity, except as
authorized by Paragraph 5-511 of the National Industrial Security Program Operating
Manual (NISPOM), DoD 5220.22-M.
Should your management or public affairs offices be contacted by the media, if
appropriate, you may refer media inquiries to Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Public Affairs at 703-697-5131.
We recognize that this information can be put to legitimate use. However, without a
doubt, foreign intelligence services, terrorist organizations, and criminal elements will
also have interest in this kind of information. It is important that companies continually
review their overall security posture to ensure that it meets required standards. We
recommend that companies affected by this publication and website assess, and take steps
to mitigate, risk to their workforce, facility and operations. These steps should include
reinforcement of security and counterintelligence (CI) protections, and a dedicated effort
to enhance workforce awareness of threats. This is also a good opportunity to review the
contents of your website to ensure that it does not contain information for which you
should have received prior release approval. Security and CI events related to the
publication of these articles and website should be reported through normal company
channels to your Facility Security Officer and DSS Industrial Security Representative.
If you have any questions, requests for specific guidance, and/or want to report any
unusual activity, please don't hesitate to have your Facility Security Officer work with
the local DSS Industrial Security representative. DSS is committed to working with
companies to safeguard classified information.
Kathy Watson
Director
Kinda missing the point, aren't they?
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 20, 2010, 08:42:13 PM
Kinda missing the point, aren't they?
subject line should read differently
Quote from: Sigmatic on July 20, 2010, 07:50:37 PM
I'm in the wrong business. This intelligence shit sounds like so much fun.
Its mostly pretting boring, unless you're on the covert action end of things. Its just shuffling more interesting than usual pieces of paper around, security briefings like the one Ippy posted, and being spied on more thoroughly by your employers.
Stang said something about people entering this kind of business getting a slice of power in return for being more controlled than they could ever dream, and he is pretty much right (again, covert action being the exception).
Well, covert action is out of the question. I can't even keep a straight face when nothing's up.