Not since the Algonquin people were displaced and Charles L’Enfant designed Washington, DC for post-Independence America, not since Napoleon III and Baron Haussman designed Paris for post-Revolution power grab, has a nation-state capital power architecture been so radically expanded until the last decade when Washington DC in response to 9/11 Terrorist Attack expanded to occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built with about 17 million square feet of space.
Not since Soviet-KGB/Nazi-SS/US-OSS-CIA has intelligence apparatus been so radically expanded until ‘Top Secret America‘ was expanded in the last decade to process intelligence to maintain the global empire of Pax Americana.
Nine days after the 9/11 attacks, Congress committed $40 billion beyond what was in the federal budget to fortify domestic defenses and to launch a global offensive against al-Qaeda. It followed that up with an additional $36.5 billion in 2002 and $44 billion in 2003. That was only a beginning.
With the quick infusion of money, military and intelligence agencies multiplied. Twenty-four organizations were created by the end of 2001, including the Office of Homeland Security and the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Task Force. In 2002, 37 more were created to track weapons of mass destruction, collect threat tips and coordinate the new focus on counterterrorism. That was followed the next year by 36 new organizations; and 26 after that; and 31 more; and 32 more; and 20 or more each in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11 – the largest increase in any central/federal bureaucracy in the history of mankind.
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 inside what amounts to an alternative architecture and geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight.
Yet, the technology and design housing 854,000 boobs could not spot an underwear on Christmas 2009, and a Nigerian crotch blew up on the faces of this grand 3202 intelligence institutions. That’s entertainment!
