Washington Post Publishes Investigation of Intelligence Operations Since 9-11
The Washington Post has published a long-awaited – and controversial – investigation called “Top Secret America” that details the vast patchwork of government contractors and intelligence operations that were spawned in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The Post uncovered an operation “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.”
Some of the findings from the Post project:
- 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, DC 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.
Part of this operation is in Nevada.
A search of the Post’s project shows six companies operating in Nevada, including DownRange Global Solutions Inc., based in Las Vegas, with one government client and less than $100 million in revenues, and the Sierra Nevada Corp., based in Sparks, with six government clients and $750 million to $1 billion in revenues.
DownRange Global Solutions describes itself as a service-disabled, veteran-owned business providing professional management and technical services to government and commercial customers, specializing in the areas of national defense, homeland security, energy programs and information technology.
SNC is a high-tech electronics, engineering, and manufacturing company.
Emails sent to the companies seeking comment on the report were not immediately returned.
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