アメリカ政府が抗議活動をする人々を監視する方法 ― そう あなたも監視されている

Tim Weiner’s book tells a long story of the FBI abusing power and targeting political activists, including left wing groups in the civil rights and women’s rights movements. It’s not just about J. Edgar Hoover. The abuses are about the absence of a political counterweight to Presidential power. 

I’m an expert in surveillance law, but I thought that the public was lacking a book that put the Big Picture together in a clear, compelling, and accurate way, so I wrote American Spies. As one of the reporters who broke the Snowden stories wrote of it, “Granick knows what she is talking about and she will make you care if you follow along.” The book won the Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for 2016. 

I’m a founding editor of Just Security Blog which offers a rigorous analysis of U.S. national security law and policy from some of the smartest people on the planet. The “Just” part in the name is no accident. I think some of us were tired of seeing national security discussed as if the only thing that mattered were narrowly-defined U.S. security interests and not justice or human rights. 

James Bamford is the preeminent historian on the NSA and its spying efforts throughout history. When he wrote The Puzzle Palace, many Americans had never heard of the agency. Today, it is regularly in the news, thanks to Edward Snowden. But to put the Snowden revelations in context, Bamford’s histories are the place to start.

The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency America’s Most Secret Intelligence Organization (New York: Penguin Books, 1983). 

The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America (Doubleday, 2008)

Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (New York: Random House, 2002). 

Charlie Savage’s book isn’t easy reading. It’s a painful story of how under President Obama all three branches of the U.S. government legitimized expansive secret surveillance, as well as torture, kidnapping, and more in the name of national security. It’s also a complicated, comprehensive, extraordinarily well-researched book.

"I have nothing to hide because I haven’t done anything wrong." Yeah, right. Silverglate explains how criminal law is so amorphous and extensive, you have definitely done something illegal. Maybe even three felonies a day.

Everyone in this country should read Michelle Alexander’s book. Through discriminatory anti-drug laws, we have disabled African-Americans from voting, getting jobs, and from housing contributing towards a permanent race-based underclass…just like Jim Crow. Once you know how the criminal justice system works, you’ll understand why unfettered access to private data is a recipe for political abuses.