"Top Secret America" lacks a thesis statement, and is a hodge-podge of disconnected and misleadingly portrayed facts, and an aid to the enemy

So says Thomas G. Mahnken From the Naval War College:

Why Dana Priest and William Arkin's 'Top Secret America' Is No Show-Stopping Piece of Investigative Reporting - By Thomas G. Mahnken Shadow Government

Key paragraphs:

I've just finished Dana Priest and William Arkin's "Top Secret America," The Washington Post's two-year, three-part "investigation" into U.S. classified activities. If one of my graduate students handed this in as a term paper, I'd have a hard time giving it a passing grade. Now, I can be a tough grader, but I'm also a fair one, and I always explain why I give the grades that I do, so here goes:

First, the authors have, at best, a weak thesis. That's actually giving them the benefit of the doubt, because the series as a whole doesn't really have a thesis. Instead, it is a series of strung-together facts and assertions. Many of these facts are misleading. For example, the authors point to the fact that large numbers of Americans hold top-secret security clearances, but fail to distinguish between those who are genuinely involved in intelligence work and those who require the clearances for other reasons -- such as maintaining classified computer equipment or, for that matter, serving as janitors or food service workers in organizations that do classified work. Similarly, they point to the large number of contractors involved in top-secret work without differentiating those who actually perform analysis and those who develop hardware and software

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I have images of the old Batman BAM! POW! graphics.

Mahnken also makes a very pointed er.. point about the moral advisability of compiling all of this information that was up until now, located at disparate sources including various corners of the Internet, retrieval of which was up until now, at least labor intensive. Now, the Washington Post has very kindly packaged the two years worth of work by Arkin and Priest into a handy and glitzy package for their readers..ALL their readers:

Of course, this isn't a graduate school term paper. It is a work of journalism. And that leads me to what is for me the most damning indictment of all. Priest and Arkin have spent two years trying to expose all manner of classified government activities. Arkin has in fact made a career of it. The database they have assembled details not only organizations involved in counter terrorism work, but also those working in unrelated fields such as Air Force technical intelligence. In so doing, they have made it easier for America's enemies to defeat U.S. efforts to ferret out their secrets and have thereby made it more rather than less likely that the United States will be surprised by a future adversary. Openness has its place, but so does secrecy.

General Sherman himself might have said that!

There is more material in the piece. Be sure to read the whole thing over at the Foreign Policy blog.