The Washington Post launched part two of its “Top Secret America” series that focuses on the National Security and U.S. Intelligence agencies.

Today's portion claims outside contractors are doing sensitive work they are not supposed to be doing:

To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called “inherently government functions.” But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post.

What started as a temporary fix in response to the terrorist attacks has turned into a dependency that calls into question whether the federal workforce includes too many people obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest -- and whether the government is still in control of its most sensitive activities. In interviews last week, both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta said they agreed with such concerns.

Meanwhile, the first installment of the series on Monday prompted the release of a five-page Q&A about national security operations from the Director of National Intelligence, posted at Politico.

Among its comments: “Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, which instantly transformed the U.S. threat environment, the nation turned to the Intelligence Community with a massive and urgent tasking: to secure the homeland.

”In 2004, Congress and the Administration, in the midst of two wars, mandated structural Intelligence Community reforms and created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to mobilize a new, integrated Intelligence Community (IC) workforce and eliminate barriers to information sharing. Many of those reforms are less than five years old. While we have made significant progress, much work remains."