"The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorists attacks of September 11th, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it consists, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work." With those words, award-winning Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin began a two-year study of the invisible universe that government overseers have haphazardly concocted to neutralize real and imagined threats to our country. This breakthrough expose lifts the lid on the meteoric rise of a national security state.