isbn: 9780307279392, and is a follow up to body of secrets (my blog).
This new book is a lot shorter than the first book and does not carry the baggage of the first book which details the nsa’s operations from the begiinning. However the book and the interviewees admit that while demanding rigorous skills from the education sector, many skilled persons where not employed and the nsa it seems prefers to employ idiots in uniform and eating donuts and not its preferred book type employee from the first book so there’s some bullshit to deal with from the first review.
New book covers pre 9/11 to now and I am having some issues with it in this regard to its editorial as.
- blaming it [nsa] for others failures (namely the cia not liking it ‘talking‘ to the fbi) plus then citing Tim McVeigh’s arrest for an unrelated unlicensed gun by local police as important (page 50) makes little sense.
- Republicans finger-pointing on privacy prior to the new york attacks
- Wholesale usa foreign policy ‘issues’
- A knowledge of how north and south Yemen came into existence is helpful (read this first my blog).
Anyhow it details the four pilots from saudi and Yemen and the movements and changes that point 1 above relates to. The first 100 pages is genius summary with the facts and commentary on the 9 11 event which takes us into the now era.
As an up to date book 2010 (as i write this) which takes us past Fisa (ignored in seconds after 911) , and the ban on americans spying on Americans, the illegal spying on domestic communications, and the rebuilding of the echelon network to include fibre, through to the paa law which replaced fisa.
The republican party which depending on its mood might hate privacy to doing a 360 degree turn on the issue out of office has some big issues – namely Bush, and Cheney’s handling of the issues, Democrats also don’t get a clean bill of health about giving the telecoms companies an above the law pass on any misdemeanors.
After the dust settled and with the help of CALEA and at & t’s fibre splicing (a hint that ssl comms are intercept ok) meant that with a large infusion of staff and contractors meant that it was boom time and the first remote kill of a terrorist while on a phone was instigated by an nsa employee although the cia got the credit for pressing the button that fired the missile.
The book explores the jewish angle and the power of the few in the monarchy whitehouse, who am i sure would have preferred that the publicity of now what is known be not. The paa act was essentially required because of the misreprsentation of the actions of steven d green who you read about here in concise form and legalised the spying operation again and got get out of jail cards fopr the telecom executives.
When we think censorship we all think china not Israel, so perhaps the end of privacy will be an jewish innovation. One might argue that 9 11 and the attacks mean that Israeli foreign policy is being implemented by the usa,
The dangers with all information collection is what you do with it, not now but in the future, as the author points outs if politicians don’t want to define some boundaries then somebody will misuse it down the line.
There are dangers now and including wordpress.com, and say Microsoft, for if the chinese (using jewish tech) and americans are using mass spying means it’s probably best not to use tools in the ways most of us use them now. Read for while many not like to know whats going on, and if the Chinese and Americans and Jewish are selling the stuff to end privacy then you can be sure its happening elsewhere too.
5/5 bananas
of note: Interesting from xkcd
Whatever your view, privacy is on the losing side. Of note the book i read has a credit from a Bob Kerry (wiki) on the cover who was on the committee and acknowledges the 9/11 Commissions shortcomings and report in a book reviiew even though he was oddly on it, go figure that out.
