In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the world of intelligence gathering has grown enormously, but questions remain about just how effective is the operation.

The Washington Post spent two years examining the intelligence community and reported on Monday that it has become "so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."

"After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine," the newspaper found. latimes