We are happy to announce a new addition to the Books We’ve Read feature of Just Security: No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State (2014) by Glenn Greenwald. The synopsis of the book is authored by Haydn Forrest, one of the excellent interns working with Just Security this summer. Here is an excerpt from the intro of the synopsis:
Equal parts memoir, journalistic thriller, and political tract, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State is author and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s personal account of the Snowden disclosures and his own role in reporting on previously unknown National Security Agency (NSA) programs. Published slightly less than a year after the initial series of stories reporting on the NSA surveillance capabilities and on the heels of the Washington Post and the Guardian winning the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism and Service for their coverage of the Snowden documents, the book offers the distilled perspective of one of the most prominent voices on surveillance today. It is divided into two principal sections, though Greenwald makes no delineation between the two. The first describes the how, from his first clandestine contacts with Snowden to eventual publication by the Guardian and the Post. The second half articulates Greenwald’s philosophy of government surveillance through a mix of personal anecdotes, descriptions of NSA programs, and political commentary. <<read the full synopsis here>>
Synopses of featured books in our Books We’ve Read section are typically authored by law students and Just Security interns and provide an in-depth summary of the featured work. These summaries are meant to be faithful synopses–one which the book’s author and critics would all (ideally) agree reasonably reflects the content of the book. For most synopses, our Editors also weigh in with their views of the book. Earlier books we’ve featured have included Kill or Capture (by Daniel Klaidman), The Terror Presidency (by Jack Goldsmith); The Way of the Knife (by Mark Mazzetti); and others. We continue to add new books to this collection over time, with others planned for later this summer. Please send us a note if you wish to propose a book for us to include.