|
The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America | 
 enlarge | Author: James Bamford
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $12.99
You Save: $14.96 (54%)
New (50) Used (15) from $8.79
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 886
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0385521324
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.1273
EAN: 9780385521321
ASIN: 0385521324
Publication Date: October 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
James Bamford exposed the existence of the top-secret National Security Agency in the bestselling The Puzzle Palace and continued to probe into its workings in his follow-up bestseller, Body of Secrets. Now Bamford discloses inside, often shocking information about the transformation of the NSA in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001.
In THE SHADOW FACTORY, Bamford shows how the NSA’s failure to detect the presence of two of the 9/11 hijackers inside the United States led the NSA to abandon its long-held policy of spying only on enemies outside the country. Instead, after 9/11 it turned its almost limitless ability to listen in on friend and foe alike over to the Bush Administration to use as a weapon in the war on terror. With unrivaled access to sources and documents, Bamford details how the agency has conducted domestic surveillance without court approval, and he frames it in the context of the NSA’s ongoing hunt for information about today’s elusive enemies.
THE SHADOW FACTORY is a riveting read for anyone concerned about civil liberties and America’s security in the post-9/11 world.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
This will make the paranoid happy. November 16, 2008
Yesterday I concluded a week of disturbing sleep by wrapping up reading this book.
I also sent money to the ACLU and the EFF, since both orgs are still pursuing the warrantless wiretapping business. Having read this, I felt pretty compelled to contribute to both orgs.
If the knowledge that your every email, phone call, and IM is being captured and data-mined, you won't want to read this. The only comfort I found in the book is learning that, according to the writer, Google execs were brainstorming years ago about the possibility that they would be bullied by some agency into sharing user data and were thinking up ways to manipulate their own data to keep it useful for their purposes and useless to anybody else.
At times, the level of detail in the book gets excessive. There's nothing wrong with skimreading a few pages till the author steps back a level and moves on with making a point.
This wasn't a fun read but I'm glad I spent the time getting through it. I learned a lot.
NC_Bob November 10, 2008
A very revealing book. The first section follows the 911 terrorists and shows how we could have stopped them. The rest of the book tells us what the 'government' is doing to monitor our every move. Big brother is here protecting us, but at what cost?
It leaves you with the question...How do we put the genie back in the bottle?
 criminals in charge October 30, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bamford's latest book is certainly well researched, and comes to some alarming conclusions: Israel has virtually bugged the entire world, and our government colludes with them in handing over all of our most private information, contrary to all of our laws and safeguards against such things. It is patently illegal, but is done anyway.
The scope of the illegal activity, and the disregard for our Constitution that permeates these actions induce more terror in me than anything "our enemies" may try to do to us. We are officially in a police state, no matter how they spin it.
The Digital Ghost October 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The wonderful Mr. Steele pretty much sums up both the content and context of the book, therefore, this reviewer shall observe the between the lines, if not the obvious flaws of the NSA according to the Shadow Factory.
THE COVER
The cover has on its right hand face; albeit very diluted and diffused - the words: TOP SECRET / MJ 12. Now, knowing Bamford is likely to uncover things that will make you re-read just to make sure you didn't misread, i.e., Operation Northwoods from Body of Secrets and the like, my first impression was that Bamford must have gained early access to the recently released (Oct. 08) UK Defense Dept's UFO archives. I mean, if you're like me and feel like a Cray SV2 or a Narus box; crunching away at any and all data in the perpetual Qwest for a truth in which the question evolves thus obscuring and complicating the initial answer you sought, you know what this `alleged organisation' does, or did. In short; the cover is the only place book you will find this MJ 12 which I am at a loss to explain its purpose on the cover; anyway...
CONTENT
In typical Bamford style, the detail is excruciating in minutiae, not to the extent of Body of Secrets, or to a lesser degree, Puzzle Palace, but peppered throughout are nuggets well worth the virtue of patience. Mr. Steele covered these `nuggets' in an equally thorough manner in his review. As Body of Secrets opens with the curious and paradoxical interceptor's motto "In God we trust, all others we monitor", p. 313 of the Shadow Factory reiterates this curious connection between God and the NSA: "You're doing the Lord's work" states Georgia Republican Senator Saxby at a quiet NSA ceremony to employees - a truly bizarre mission statement with a moment of thought when compared to the 10th Commandment of the Decalogue.
Then there is the `bad guy', the world's greatest asset for the post 9-11 techno boom: "UBL" (p. 56 etc). Like Body of Secrets (p. 410) where Bamford casually states (prior to 9-11) that "NSA regularly listens to unencrypted calls from suspected terrorist Osama Bin Laden, in hiding in Afghanistan. Bin Laden uses a portable INMARSAT phone that transmits and receives calls over spacecraft owned by the International Marine Satellite Organisation.... According to intelligence officials, Bin Laden is aware that the US can eavesdrop on his international communications, but he does not seem to care. To impress cleared visitors, NSA analysts occasionally play audiotapes of Bin Laden talking to his mother over an INMARSAT connection." Bamford rehashed this in Pretext for War (p. 168) and even provides "UBL's" phone number on (ibid, p. 163) and again in Shadow Factory (p. 8); despite the bin Laden al-Qaeda (the Fight) bogeyman being inferred responsible for 9-11 by Richard Clarke and CTC (ibid pp. 55-56 etc), in spite of the reality, Bamford makes no mention that the FBI's own terrorist page of the elusive "UBL" makes no connection between 9-11 and "UBL". It is Bamford's attention to detail that one expects this `small detail' to be put forth in conclusion. This, however, is the only criticism of Bamford's style I can share.
AFTER-THOUGHTS
After ingesting the Shadow Factory, one cannot help but feel that the ABYSS that is the NSA, both in terms of data and money, is merely a symptom of a sick and paranoid system. For the No Such Agency or Never Say Anything NSA to come into the spotlight is a sign that all else has failed. For a democratic system which has diplomacy as its "restraining of power" as Kissinger says, to hold up the NSA and tell the world; "we can hear everything you say," is a sad last resort brand of politics using NSA as shadowy standover - a digital ghost - everywhere, unseen, but ever-present; the final weapon no longer looking out, but set up as a firewall between the Executive and rightful and lawful dissent from within. However, with "the annual equivalent of a thirty-foot stack of books for every man, woman, and child on the planet (p. 3)" in data flowing into the agency, one cannot help but conclude that the greatest threat to this unfathomable power is not terrorists or exposure, but the Achilles of NSA would be as simple as all non-work related e-mails going back to the good ol' tried and tested handwritten or printed letter using the USPS. GASP!!!
Shadow Factory in Summation
Bamford tells a story whereby as a result of the warrantless surveillance program in the U.S (and world), NSA employees have been cast as little more than well educated glorified perverts or voyeurs, listening to the intimate conversations of mostly average folk in anonymity whilst making jokes; degraded into doing little more than indulging the narcissistic paranoia of the Angler and the current resident of P-52 which is clearly the consequence of a guilty conscience - overcompensation I think is the term. The trillions of dollars spent to nab a few terrorists, or potential terrorists (however that's defined) and line the pockets of Defense and Techno contractors is nothing short of palpable. Bamford cites on p. 327 that the NSA is attempting to build the HAL-9000 from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, whereby you can ask the computer a question and it will give you an answer. Let's just hope that no one asks the computer this; "Based on ALL the information at your disposal, HAL, should the Bush administration be impeached?" Or maybe HAL could be asked to come up with a better motto for the NSA interceptor? I think in all probability the answer would be: "It takes one to know one."
This book is a must for the world that is not only coming, but is already upon us all. Great work Mr. Bamford. 4 Stars.
Pay Attention Niow October 29, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
For the Layman, 4 Stars is the limit owing to the details of the software. The fundamental problem is attributing all of NSA's illegal activities to 9-11. 9-11 was not a terrorist attack, it was an attack by a conspiracy of friends not by bin Laden, not by 19 arabs. 9-11 was the collusion of America, Israel and Saudi Arabia (yes, Israel and Saudi Arabia are friends). 9-11 was a scheme to cover multiple objectives such as a NEW PEARL HARBOR, a NEW WORLD ORDER (read corporate fascism in America), a pipeline war on Afghanistan (to provoke Russia), a war on Iraq to oust Saddam leading to a war on Iran (both to secure Israel's and Saudi Arabia's future). The result of these new intelligence programs is to forever rob the Americn people of their privacy. Pay attention now.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
