No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
Glenn Greenwald, 2014
Henry Holt & Company
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781627790734
Summary
In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels.
That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy. As the arguments rage on and the government considers various proposals for reform, it is clear that we have yet to see the full impact of Snowden’s disclosures.
Now for the first time, Greenwald fits all the pieces together, recounting his high-intensity eleven-day trip to Hong Kong, examining the broader implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for The Guardian, and revealing fresh information on the NSA’s unprecedented abuse of power with never-before-seen documents entrusted to him by Snowden himself.
Going beyond NSA specifics, Greenwald also takes on the establishment media, excoriating their habitual avoidance of adversarial reporting on the government and their failure to serve the interests of the people. Finally, he asks what it means both for individuals and for a nation’s political health when a government pries so invasively into the private lives of its citizens—and considers what safeguards and forms of oversight are necessary to protect democracy in the digital age.
Coming at a landmark moment in American history, No Place to Hide is a fearless, incisive, and essential contribution to our understanding of the U.S. surveillance state. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 6, 1967
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Lauderdale Lakes, Florida
• Education—B.A., George Washington University; J.D., New York
University
• Awards—Izzy Award; Pulitzer Prize for Public Service
• Currently—lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Glenn Greenwald is an American political journalist, lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author. He was born in New York City to Arlene and Daniel Greenwald; shortly after his birth, his family to moved Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. While a senior in high school, at 17, he ran unsuccessfully for the city council. He earned a B.A. at George Washington University in 1990 and a J.D. at New York University School of Law in 1994.
Litigation attorney
Greenwald practiced law in the Litigation Department at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (1994–1995); in 1996 he co-founded his own litigation firm, called Greenwald Christoph & Holland (later renamed Greenwald Christoph PC), where he litigated cases concerning issues of U.S. constitutional law and civil rights. One of his higher-profile cases was the pro bono representation of white supremacist Matthew F. Hale, in a series of First Amendment speech cases. About that work, Greenwald told Rolling Stone...
To me, it's a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it not when it's easy...not when it supports your position, not when it protects people you like, but when it defends and protects people that you hate.
Later, according to Greenwald,
I decided voluntarily to wind down my practice in 2005 because I could, and because, after ten years, I was bored with litigating full-time and wanted to do other things which I thought were more engaging and could make more of an impact, including political writing.
Journalism
He was a columnist for Guardian US from August 2012 to October 2013. He was a columnist for Salon.com from 2007 to 2012, and an occasional contributor to The Guardian. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator. At Salon he contributed as a columnist and blogger, focusing on political and legal topics. He has also contributed to other newspapers and political news magazines, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, American Conservative, National Interest, and In These Times.
Greenwald was named by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013. Three of the four books he authored have been New York Times bestsellers. Greenwald is a frequent speaker on college campuses, including Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, UCLA School of Law, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Maryland. He frequently appears on various radio and television programs.
Books
• 2014 - No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
• 2011 - With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
• 2008 - Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics
• 2007 - A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
• 2006 - How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values From A President Run Amok
Awards
He has won numerous awards for his NSA reporting, including the 2013 Polk Award for national security reporting, the top 2013 investigative journalism award from the Online News Association, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting (the Brazilian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), and the 2013 Pioneer Award from Electronic Frontier Foundation. He also received the first annual I. F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2009 and a 2010 Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the arrest and detention of Chelsea Manning. In 2013, Greenwald led the Guardian reporting that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service.
Personal
Greenwald lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the hometown of his partner, David Michael Miranda. Greenwald has said his residence in Brazil is the result of an American law, the Defense of Marriage Act, barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages, which prevented his partner from receiving a visa to reside in the United States with him. The pertinent section of the law was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013, in U.S. v. Windsor. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/06/2014.)
Book Reviews
The author of three New York Times best sellers, winner of the 2009 I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and among 25 journalists cited as the most influential by the Atlantic, Guardian columnist Greenwald expands on his coverage of the NSA surveillance scandal, a story he broke. More documentation here from whistle-blower Edward Snowden
Library Journal
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