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Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2011 320 pages $27.99
Reviewed by David W. Astin, Student, US Army War College.
In Top Secret America, authors Dana Priest and William Arkin explore the "intelligence-military-corporate apparatus" that has grown into a sprawling universe of its own since the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. With Priest as primary author and Arkin serving as chief re-searcher, the two have expanded a four-part series of articles they first published in the Washington Post in 2010. The result is an in-depth account of the enormous complex of organizations and agencies that have emerged in the decade since 9/11 to defend the country from the threat of terrorism. The purpose of the book is to promote debate about whether or not the response from the government is in the best interest of state security or has been conducted at the expense of individual liberties and democratic values. As the authors contend, "Only more transparency and debate will make us safe from terrorism and the challenges faced by the United States."
The rise of the new American security state, which is the book's subtitle, is the result of the overwhelming growth of the security industry and its vested interest in perpetuating the cycle of fear that 9/11 engendered. One of the book's overarching themes is that such growth has not translated into greater security. As evidence, the authors cite cases such as US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, as well as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to ignite an explosive device hidden in his underwear on a flight bound for Detroit, Michigan, in December 2009. In these and other cases, the authors assert that "lack of disciplined focus, not lack of resources," resulted in the failure of intelligence and security officials to detect the emerging threat. On a larger scale, such a lack of focus led to the colossal intelligence failure of 2011, namely the Arab Spring. The intelligence community's inability to unearth the "dynamic political change sweeping across the Middle East"...