Deacon Solomon
Reviewer
Today I saw an article on the website of Investigative Reporters and Editors. The headline asks: Should law enforcement tell the public about new surveillance tech?
I didn't bother to read the article because my journalist's education makes the content plain enough. Other Americans may remember a time (as I do) when the proper response to such a question was "What the hell kind of a question is that? Are you stupid or just plain crazy?"
Too bad: many Americans no longer think that way. Our vaunted 'Land of the Free' is presently peopled by a lot of paranoid wimps who depend on government to protect them from any person, any thing, and any idea that might possibly scare them for any conceivable reason.
Government, naturally, gives them what they ask for (We live in a democracy, right?) while it dreams up more 'scary' things from which to protect them. In short, many Americans think blanket surveillance is a Good Thing - until comes the day (soon, I hope) when they find themselves strapped down on a waterboard because secret police saw them speaking with or reading a book written by someone Big Sam doesn't like.
Luckily, there are still some Americans who don't believe blanket surveillance is a Good Thing. They don't believe government has any right to listen to our phone calls, record our emails, snoop in our medicine chests, send murder squads into our homes, or poke its nose into our body cavities at airports.
Noting some disparity between those who like and those who don't like surveillance, an enterprising journalist named Glenn Greenwald has written a book he calls 'No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State'. Greenwald's book could reunite Americans - those who like being watched and those who don't - because it will scare the livin' crap out of everybody who reads it.
Mr. Greenwald is what I call a good writer, by which I mean that 'No Place to Hide' is well-organized, and the author's prose is an easy read for being both coherent and lively.
Greenwald's 'Introduction' tells how he got interested in surveillance: He once made a career of civil rights and constitutional law. He took up journalism (political blogging) in the first few years of this century, when, as a lawyer, he grew more and more aware that our country was being run by a lot of dangerous cranks. Shortly after Greenwald took up blogging, the 'New York Times' reported that President Bush II secretly ordered warrantless, blanket surveillance of Americans' electronic communications.
That's how and why, for the next few years, Mr. Greenwald got a living reporting dirt on the Bushmen. As Heaven and the world both now know, the Bushmen had no dearth of dirt on which to report. Of course, Greenwald's criticism of government and especially the Bushmen put him in the way of counterattacks by government, by the Bushmen, and by the many human and institutional actors within journalism who defended the Bushmen and their vicious, idiotic policy initiatives.
Greenwald knew he was making enemies. But little did he realize that his treatment of government-by-perfidious cranks and his disdain of mainstream journalism would bring him a reward - a scoop - as big or bigger than any journalist probably ever hoped for or thought possible.
Speaking now of 'No Place to Hide' (NPTH), Chapter 1 is titled 'Contact.' There, Greenwald tells how he was first contacted by Edward Snowden, a person of whom neither Greenwald nor anybody else had heard at the time.
Snowden acted anonymously when first approaching Greenwald. He assumed the (to me) laughably melodramatic moniker, 'Cincinnatus.' Too bad: Greenwald had never heard of 'Cincinnatus,' either.
When Greenwald found the first 'Cincinnatus' message in his email inbox, he ignored it. Over the next few weeks he ignored several more, believing they came from some kind of a nut. So it was through a third party - journalist and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitrus - that Greenwald and Snowden finally started 'talking' via encrypted email. The rest of the chapter tells how the three of them finally found their way onto the same page and agreed to meet in Hong Kong, there to deal in smoking-hot, national-security documents.
Chapter 2, 'Ten Days in Hong Kong,' tells Greenwad's version of what went on in Hong Kong, tells of how well and how carefully Snowden had organized and stored and closely kept the many tens of thousands of electronic documents.
No sooner did they get the documents (all on thumb drives) from Snowden than Greenwald used them to write two stories for 'The Guardian,' the newspaper that had paid for Greenwald's Hong Kong 'vacation.' The stories splashed around and over Washington, D.C. for the next couple of weeks and predictably left those embarrassed by them howling 'Murder! Treason! Kill the Swine!' and screaming for investigations.
How the documents changed hands is told. How they were divided up, for obvious reasons, is not made plain. Surely no one person carried the whole trove back to the States - or to Rio - or wherever they were taken. If one mule got arrested, everything would be lost.
My own surmise is that the world will never know any of those who might have taken part in that escapade beyond the few Greenwald named in the book. Regardless, he and his did the deal with Snowden and filed two stories, and then beat it the hell out of there.
Snowden was spirited away by some Chinese hoteliers and eventually ended - as the world knows - in Russia. The chapter ends with Greenwald in a television studio at an undisclosed location sweating under a nasty, on-camera grilling by noxious 'journalists' who host noxious, daytime TV 'news' shows called 'Morning Joe' and 'Today.'
Chapter 3, titled 'Collect It All,' fingers the NSA for precisely what it is and all it hopes to be in the future. Nothing in Chapter 3 is pretty except Greenwald's own prose and his take-down of the sneaking, treasonous creeps that establishment journalism calls 'our leaders.' Beautiful, black-and-white reproductions of secret NSA documents are replete with handy NSA graphics. The documents and the graphics amply support every last accusations that lawyer Greenwald hurls at the agency. And yes: there are lots of accusations.
Chapter 3 is NOT an indictment; it is a nuclear 'smart-bomb' and it hits the target squarely. Of the 5 chapters in NPTH, 'Collect It All' is the meatiest and most laborious read because it does the bulk of the heavy lifting.
Chapter 4 discusses 'The Harm of Surveillance'. Author Greenwald's essay explains for readers the numerous ways that a surveillance state does damage to us as individuals, to democracy in America, and to the nation at large. If you're one of those who cannot understand why people such as Greenwald and this writer preach that government surveillance will yet be the ruin of us and of our country, Chapter 4 is for you. Folks who read History and other sentient beings already know such stuff.
Finally, Chapter 5 is dubbed 'The Fourth Estate,' because that's where Greenwald takes his lawyer's rhetorical ax to the likes of David Gregory and Michael Kinsley, and other yahoo 'journalists' who in this, that, or the other mainstream venue do their cussed, pathetic best to tar-and-feather Greenwald's credibility. The author disposes of their arguments in ways that look easy because, when their arguments are cut wide open (as good lawyers like Greenwald can do) readers see there's nothing but a few cubic feet of hot ventosity in the heads of David Gregory, Michael Kinsley, and the rest.
Considering the entire Greenwald-Snowden-NSA surveillance scandal, this review will now make a long, complex story as short as possible: Edward Snowden gave Glenn Greenwald a huge cache of top-secret documents, the sum of which prove beyond any doubt that if you use the telephone, the Internet, or any other electronic communication device for any purpose whatsoever, the NSA hears every word you say and sees every message you send.
Summing up, every American had best depend on this one thing: every word you say on the telephone and every message you post on the Internet can and will be used against you if ever for any reason something you've said or done or borrowed from the library makes Big Sam or some of his friends sore at you. It's there; it's real; it's really there, and there it is.
Americans are privileged (and encouraged by government) to stick their heads in the sand at any time they choose. Americans are also privileged to rue the day, the hour, the minute, the second they chose to do so.
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About the author
Wasn't for me
I guess if you think that the government is out to get you, or if you're in love with Snowden, then you would probably enjoy this read. I really had a hard time reading through this book because I have an opposite opinion on the subject. I also didn't like the structure of the book, which had extremely long chapters that seemed to drag on and repeat the same details over and over. Though I did like the first chapter. I also got a little sick of the author telling us how great he is. All in all, the book wasn't for me but I won't give it a terrible rating because if you agree with the author you'll probably like the book.
Top reviews from other countries
Daniel Landin
Revelador y muy detallado en narrativa
Reviewed in Mexico on February 4, 2019
