The quote in the subject line comes from Dana Priest in the Frontline video accompanying the Washington Post's Top Secret America project.
It burns, of course, because plenty of dirty fucking hippies like me dared to say it, but we don't exist, you see. So, of course, "nobody" dared to say it.
I'd like to point out one of the more chilling passages buried near the end of today's installment:
On a day that also featured free back rubs, shoeshines, ice cream and fruit smoothies, another speaker, Kevin P. Meiners, a deputy undersecretary for intelligence, gave the audience what he called "the secret sauce," the key to thriving even when the Defense Department budget eventually stabilizes and stops rising so rapidly.
"Overhead," Meiners told them - that's what's going to get cut first. Overhead used to mean paper clips and toner. Now it's information technology, IT, the very products and services sold by the businesspeople in the audience.
"You should describe what you do as a weapons system, not overhead," Meiners instructed. "Overhead to them - I'm giving you the secret sauce here - is IT and people. . . . You have to foot-stomp hard that this is a war-fighting system that's helping save people's lives every day."
That's a deputy undersecretary for intelligence laying that out for you there.
The good news here, apparently, is that the whole "not keeping track" part of Top Secret America is pretty much the whole point of the game.
"I have a whole range of turnkey war-fighting systems ready to start helping save people's lives every day. Where do I sign up to start selling my awesome web-2.0 enabled buzzphrase-compliant social networking qoolness to unaccountable sekrit squirrels with unlimited bank and— let me stress the most important factor— no accountability?"
I suppose I should offer my take on this in a nice bite-sized piece: this bullshit has gone well past the "welfare for white people" phase. We're into Tulip Mania territory at this point. When this one collapses, it's going to make a spectacular crater.
