Co-authored by Dana Priest and William Arkin in 2010, Top Secret America was a series of investigative articles published by the the Washington Post on the post-9/11 growth of the United States Intelligence Community. In 2011, Priest and Arkin published the book, Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State, and in 2013, Frontline aired the film Top Secret America—9/11 to the Boston Bombings on PBS.
His first work of fiction, History in One Act: A Novel of 9/11, will be out in 2021. Here are some reviews & praise for William Arkin’s Top Secret America…
“… a breathtaking investigative account of America’s vast new secret world. … An invaluable book.”
“One of the many strengths of Top Secret America is that Priest and Arkin take nothing for granted. They ask basic, even faux- naïve questions about the purpose, accountability, and effectiveness of the acronym soup of covert programs, companies, and Pentagon commands created or expanded after September 11. Their analysis is neither naïve about the threat posed by al-Qaeda and similar groups, nor credulous about the generals, spies, and bureaucrats who have so dramatically expanded the country’s defenses in response to September 11.”
“Priest and Arkin, columnists for the Washington Post and other media outlets, won the 2010 George Polk Award for their exposé of the surveillance state. Here, they blow the whistle on how, since 9/11 and the adoption of the Patriot Act, the government and its contractors use classification and security screens to conceal expenditures that have failed to enhance national security. … Overall, this is an important book that should receive greater attention.”
“A former Army intelligence analyst in West Berlin in the 1970s, Arkin, according to his Post biography, later did stints at Greenpeace International and Human Rights Watch—activist associations that might not pass the classic standard of journalistic objectivity that has been much debated in the wake of Post blogger David Weigel’s resignation from the Post. Arkin’s background was almost immediately cited by right-leaning blogs Monday as undermining the credibility of the series…
’The digital part of it could not have been done without him and without his kind of brain,’ [Dana Priest] said. ‘That’s not necessarily a blogger brain. That’s the research phenomenon that he is.’”
“IGC.org is a hard-left email address. If the guy’s a real Washington Post reporter, can’t the Washington Post manage to give him a Washington Post email address? And if he’s a real Washington Post reporter (since 1998?), what’s he doing advising the U.N.?
Hugh Hewitt had more at the Weekly Standard back in 2003, including: ‘Arkin’s own speech to an audience at the U.S. Naval War College on September 25, 2002. In this lengthy and vitriolic attack on the Bush administration, Arkin admitted to feeling “cynical about the fact that we are going to war to enhance the economic interests of the Enron class,” and declared that “the war against terrorism is overstated.”‘
Oh, and Mr. Arkin also writes for the Nation …
I’ve always believed you judge the journalism by the words not by the biography of the author, but this is really something. ”
“William Arkin has just dropped a stellar entry in the biggest asshole in America contest. I was stunned by the incredible amount of disgusting, deranged, disrespectful drivel the wanker was able to cobble together in one hearty F U to the troops.”
Read the full post at the BlackFive blog