Perhaps even more interesting than the Senator's efforts to dig deeper, is that there are people outside the government who know some of these details but hadn't divulged them until Brennan himself stopped into the spotlight. About halfway through The Washington Post's story on the Saudia Arabian base, the paper admits that it knew about it from the very beginning, but didn't say anything because they were asked not to report it. Here's the key passage:

The Washington Post had refrained from disclosing the location at the request of the administration, which cited concern that exposing the facility would undermine operations against an al-Qaeda affiliate regarded as the network’s most potent threat to the United States, as well as potentially damage counterterrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia. The Post learned Tuesday night that another news organization was planning to reveal the location of the base, effectively ending an informal arrangement among several news organizations that had been aware of the location for more than a year.

The other news organization is The New York Times, which also presumably knew about the base for some time in the course of its reporting on drone memos and kill lists, but waited until today's Page One story about Brennan and the drone war to drop the news. The theme of their story is that Brennan's nomination is putting a new spotlight on the program — a spotlight conveniently being shined by The New York Times.

What today's stories remind us is that there are plenty of people in and out of government who are aware of the drone program, and where and how it operates. Senators receive intelligence briefings, military officials coordinate logistics, reporters get tips, diplomats negotiate terms, and spies trade secrets. The difference is what gets shared with the public is selective and seemingly random and often determined by unrelated political events — like a confirmation hearing. Anyone could have broken the story before today, but it took Brennan's nomination to push it forward. That's just one reason why few people ever see the whole picture, at least not until the entire affair is over and done with it.

"Secret" US drone base in Saudi Arabia was \widely known. Surprised media collectively agreed to w/hold that info for a year. — Micah Zenko (@MicahZenko) February 6, 2013

Maybe the only person who does see the whole picture, besides perhaps President Obama, is Brennan himself — the Times's kill-list story described him as "[b]eside the president at every step" on pulling Predator and Reaper triggers. A career CIA officer, Brennan has overseen all side of the program for the administration and may be the only one who can keep it in check; if he even wants to, that is — in a couple different speeches last year, he doggedly defendes the targeted killing program. Thursday's hearing may force him to give up some of those details, but if a CIA director can't hold back some secrets, well, then he wouldn't be doing his job.