BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Washington Post this week published the first three installments of an ongoing series about Top Secret America. It’s named for the shadowy, disconnected intelligence apparatus that has ballooned in size, scope and funding since the attacks of September 11th, 2001. The authors are The Post’s Dana Priest and military and intelligence analyst William Arkin. The premise is that no one, not even those at the highest levels of government, has a clear picture of who’s doing what in American intelligence. Some of The Post’s findings: There are 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies working on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence, and an estimated 854,000 people who have top-secret security clearances. Arkin says the two-year-long project was, in a word, daunting.

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: We thought to ourselves, how in the hell are we going to be able to figure out what is the totality of what has transpired since 9/11? And the way in which we thought about it was anything, whether it’s warrantless surveillance or the most innocuous program, has to be located somewhere, and we set about the process of figuring that out. Then we were able to start analyzing the data to look for patterns or significant new facts. And I would say that there are basically three that we discovered. One was the number of new organizations and new companies which have been created since 9/11. Two was the domination of information technology in this new industry. And, number three, this is an industry which has transformed itself from one which is primarily in the public sector to one that is increasingly in the private sector.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You estimate that about 30 percent of the people with top security clearances are private contractors. Are they harder to keep track of? Do they conform to the same rules that govern government officials?

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: After 9/11, there was a sense that there needed to be an enormous and quick surge of American capability. They had to go to the private sector. And so, you have profit-making companies who have no incentive to cooperate with other companies and no incentive not to make more money, and unregulated bureaucrats are not going to ever volunteer to cut themselves.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So there’s no comprehensive watchdog over this hydra-headed beast.

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: There really isn't, Brooke. I have to say to you that one of the things that stunned us as we were talking to people inside the government was we would say, we've put together this list of 85 entities within the Department of Justice that are doing various aspects of intelligence, and people in government would say, really? Can I see that list? [LAUGHS] I even remember [LAUGHS] an occasion in which we made a presentation, and someone in the room said, the Internal Revenue Service, it doesn't do top secret work. And we showed them - what the top secret work that the Internal Revenue Service did, and this give person sort of slumped in their chair and said, oh I guess so.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] Now, it seems no one has a handle on this Top Secret America, except perhaps you, and yet you say all this information, this entire database, was built on public records. If this is all so top secret, how is it that all that information was out there?

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: Look, everything lives somewhere. Everything has some footprint. Everything has some exhaust. And we were able to, using, really the methods of U.S. intelligence, if you will, to map this out. But in the end, we held that the standard for including something in the database was that we had to have a public record associated with it and we had to have a confirmation.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think it would have been possible to assemble and present this volume of data before these online tools were available?

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: You know, it couldn't have been done without the digital side. And in the time period that The Washington Post supported this two-year project, Brooke, they consolidated the digital and print newsrooms. So now all of the people who work at The Washington Post, both online and on paper, work in the same building, on the same newsroom, in the same floor. And I think that this is the product of what that consolidation has meant, and I think it’s a pointer of what’s possible when one conceives of a project digitally from the beginning.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What did Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and CIA Chief Leon Panetta and uh, and General Clapper, the soon-to-be Director of National Intelligence, think of this piece?

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: You know, when we spoke to Secretary Gates, he said, I wish I could find out how many contractors work for my own office, but I haven't been able to do so. Some people have said to us, hooray, go on, do more. Other people, particularly people in the security and counterintelligence world, were alarmed and thought that we were endangering national security. The reality is that after much consideration, much legal counsel, the government could not provide us with any specifics as to what about this was really bothering them.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: They didn't give you a specific objection, but did it give you pause that clarifying this complex web might be helping people who would want to harm the country?

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: Well, Brooke, I've heard these arguments many times before. In 1983 I revealed where all of the nuclear weapon sites around the world were, and the Reagan administration at the time not only threatened me with jail but said that, you know, this would jeopardize the security of nuclear weapons. And I don't think it had that impact at all. In fact, the transparency was responsible for much disarmament at the time. But, you know, with an institution like The Washington Post, I am not the person making the decisions. Many revisions were made to the mapping application and the database in order to strike a balance. In the end, I'm really satisfied that we've presented something that is in the public interest with the greatest care in order to preserve national security and public safety, at the same time.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think that the director of national intelligence, the secretary of defense and the head of the CIA will use your database to help solve some of the problems that the database reveals?

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: Yes, I think they will, and I think Congress will as well. And in this world of transparency and digital monitoring, I can already tell you how many people from those government agencies are looking at the database every day.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: How many?

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: A lot.

[LAUGHTER]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Bill, thank you very much.

WILLIAM M. ARKIN: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Bill Arkin is a military and intelligence analyst with The Washington Post.