After deciding to profile Franklin L. Haney as part of our Stealthy Wealthy series, an obvious question soon posed itself: Exactly how much have Haney's companies collected over the years in leasing office space to the federal government?

The answer -- or rather non-answer -- to the question says less about Haney than it does about the limits on what the public can know about how its tax dollars are being spent.

News reports stated that his company, through a variety of limited liability corporations and real estate partnerships, had leases for office space worth many millions of dollars dating back ...