A cautionary tale of big government

The Washington Post ran a series of articles this week about the massive growth (and apparent lack of accountability) of the U.S. intelligence community since 9/11.

The Bush Administration, followed by the Obama White House, have allowed scores of of alphabet soup government agencies to grow without any checks-and-balances or regard for expense.

Are we safer today after billions of dollars have been spent to bolster America's intelligence-gathering apparatus after the failures that led to 9/11? That's debatable.

From an editorial summarizing the series:

SINCE SEPT. 11, 2001, the United States has increased its spending on intelligence by 250 percent and created or revamped 263 organizations. Yet the problems that gusher of money and bureaucracy were meant to solve -- such as the failure of existing intelligence organizations to share information or "connect the dots" about terrorism threats -- have not been alleviated. Instead, as a series of articles in The Post this week documented, the vast expansion of agencies, programs and personnel -- including tens of thousands of private contractors -- has overwhelmed many of the policymakers and military commanders it was meant to serve.

Read the full editorial, "The overgrowth of intelligence programs since Sept. 11," at the newspaper's website.

You can also read the series, "Top Secret America," here.