HS 173 - "Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry" with David Brown

In 2002 David Brown, a.k.a. DB Grady, graduated from Louisiana State University with a Bachelor of Science in computer science. Soon after graduation he joined the Army and did a tour of duty in Afghanistan. At various points in his life, he has alley docked eighteen-wheelers, flipped burgers, jumped out of airplanes, and written Bezier spline generation algorithms. Currently, he is a member of the Authors Guild and the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, as well as a grant recipient from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. David Brown has investigated and discussed how the government secrecy industry has grown exponentially and how personal privacy is facing attacks from numerous fronts. "It's astonishing and it's only getting worse," Grady commented about the incredible amounts of information that has been labeled as 'secret' by our government. According to his research, the amount of government workers or contractors who have 'secret' or 'top secret' clearances is in the millions and could account for the entire population of the city of Chicago. He explained that this is because so much information has been classified over the years that such clearances are required "just to do your typical day-to-day job."