No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S …

I've been following the Edward Snowden saga since it started, and following NSA, the IC, and the national security state since the early 1990s. I had to read this book, as Glenn Greenwald had a critical role in bringing Snowden's materials to the public, and I wanted to see if he had anything new to say.

In one way, the book is very good. If you aren't terribly familiar with the situation, he provides a decent overview, and some new slides which illustrate what NSA has been doing (particularly since 9/11) and why it's bad. A particularly strong area is explaining why the "terrorism" justification is only a pretext, and the true purpose of domestic surveillance is controlling political and cultural rivals.

However, if you're completely familiar with everything published to date, there really isn't much new in this book. The only new material, aside from yet more slides about classified programs, is a bit more detail into how the pre-publication review process worked (or didn't work), and some inside baseball about the media itself. This is interesting, but ultimately not compelling. It's a pretty short book, too.

If you are deeply interested in the media and its handling of the national security state, or just want to read everything possible on the topic, sure, this is a good enough book.

If you are a general interest person who just wants an overview of the Snowden situation and its import, I would recommend the PBS Frontline "United States of Secrets", which is an excellent overview with much stronger interviews with Thomas Drake, William Binney, etc. than I'd seen in the media before.

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No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S ...