Priest Dana - Top secret America: the rise of the new American security state

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Each day at the National Counterterrorism Center, in McLean, Virginia, workers review at least five thousand pieces of terrorist-related data from intelligence agencies and keep an eye on world events. (Melina Mara/Washington Post)

Liberty Crossing, in McLean, Virginia, houses the headquarters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center. (Michael S. Williamson/Washington Post)

Liberty Crossing, in McLean, Virginia, houses the headquarters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center. (Michael S. Williamson/Washington Post)

Richard Zahner, then army deputy chief of staff for intelligence, appears in a video presentation at the Defense Intelligence Agency conference for contractors in Phoenix. (Michael S. Williamson/Washington Post)

John Rizzo served thirty-four years in the CIA, much of it as the agencys senior deputy legal counsel. After 9/11 he signed off on every covert program, including the Counterterrorism Centers kill list of suspected terrorists. (Central Intelligence Agency)

Since 9/11 the federal government has built or substantially renovated thirty-three office complexes in the Washington, DC, area, a total of seventeen million square feet of office space, in order to carry out its top secret work. (Washington Post)

Law enforcement personnel stand guard during President Barack Obamas 2009 inaugural parade. The new president had the largest entourage in history, with twenty thousand uniformed guards and twenty-five thousand law enforcement officers enveloping him in a blanket of security, much of it invisible, that spanned from New York to West Virginia. (Preston Keres/Washington Post)

By President Obamas inauguration, FBI supervisor John Perren was part of a cadre of a hundred or so veteran law enforcement, intelligence, and military officers who were still on the job, planning and executing the takedown of Middle Eastern terrorists since the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993. In 2001, as head of the FBIs counterterrorism office in the nations capital, Perren supervised the recovery of bodies and evidence from the smoldering Pentagon and then deployed to Iraq to oversee FBI law enforcement assistance to the massive counterterrorism operations in that combat zone. (Federal Bureau of Investigation)

The FBIs Inaugural Command Center brought threat information from the sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies together for analysts to review. It also included real-time video feeds from surveillance cameras located on hundreds of buildings and street corners and along the main streets and highways leading into the nations capital. (Federal Bureau of Investigation)

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, right, briefs President Obama on intelligence matters. Clapper is the fifth DNI in six years. The DNI is supposed to be the head of all intelligence agencies but isnt actually. (Pete Souza/The White House)

At his command center at CIA headquarters, CIA director Leon E. Panetta monitors the progress of the operation at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011. (Central Intelligence Agency)

(Washington Post)

The National Security Agency, the nations eavesdropper, never sleeps. NSA buildings in Maryland total 18.6 million square feet of space, 1.3 times the size of the Pentagon. (Sandra McConnell, NSA)

The National Business Park complex of private corporations is conveniently located just blocks from the National Security Agency, for which most of the corporations work. (Michael S. Williamson/Washington Post)

(Washington Post)

Stars engraved on the wall of the CIA represent people who have died in the line of duty. Of the twenty-two stars representing people killed since 9/11, eight are for private contractors. (Central Intelligence Agency)

A local caf near the National Security Agency advertises a job fair for people with security clearances. (Michael S. Williamson/Washington Post)