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"Using exclusive access to key government sources, Shane Harris chronicles the rise of the American surveillance state over the past 25 years and highlights a dangerous paradox: our government's strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on the rest of us."
"An explosive look at the domestic agencies charged with spying on all of us. Given recent terrorist events in the U.S., this timely book draws on access to political and operational insiders to create a brilliant expos? of why and how the American government spies on citizens. Born in the wake of the 1983 massacre of 241 Marines in Beirut, the plan by Ronald Reagan's national security advisor, John Poindexter, to coordinate intelligence on terrorists has claimed billions of government dollars. Despite the cost, it has failed in its mission to identify new threats. But as Harris shows, it has provided the government with a tool for spying on Americans that has ushered in an age of constitutionally questionable intrusion into the lives of every citizen."@en
"This volume investigates how the American government has acquired unprecedented means of surveillance power. The author details the rise of a "band of mavericks" in national security and intelligence organizations that has erected "an American surveillance state." He focuses on the role of a handful of key figures, including Reagan-era National Security Adviser John Poindexter, as they campaigned for information technology to identify terrorists. The author feels that this program has failed in its mission to identify new threats and has provided the government with a tool for spying on Americans that has ushered in an age of constitutionally questionable intrusion into the lives of every citizen."
""Using exclusive access to key insiders, Shane Harris charts the rise of America's surveillance state over the past twenty-five years and highlights a dangerous paradox: Our government's strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on the rest of us. " --Editor."@en
""Using exclusive access to key government insiders, Shane Harris chronicles the rise of America's surveillance state over the past 25 years and highlights a dangerous paradox: Our government's strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on the rest of us. In 1983, Admiral John Poindexter, President Reagan's National Security Advisor, realized that the U.S. might have prevented the terrorist massacre of 241 Marines in Beirut, if intelligence agencies could have analyzed in real time the data they had on the attackers. Poindexter poured technical know-how and government funds into his dream-a system that would sift reams of information for signs of terrorist activity. Decades later, that elusive dream still captivates Washington. After 9/11, Poindexter returned to government with a controversial program, called Total Information Awareness, to detect the next attack. Today it has evolved into a secretly funded operation that can gather a trove of personal information on every American and millions of others worldwide. Despite billions of dollars spent on this quest since the Reagan era, we still can't discern future threats in the vast data cloud that surrounds us all. But the government can now spy on its citizens with an ease that was impossible-and illegal-just a few years ago. Drawing on unprecedented access to the people who pioneered this high-tech spycraft, Harris shows how it has moved from the province of right-wing technocrats into the mainstream, becoming a cornerstone of the Obama administration's war on terror. Harris puts us behind the scenes where twenty-first-century spycraft was born. We witness Poindexter quietly working from the private sector to get government to buy in to his programs in the early nineties. We see an Army major agonize as he carries out an order to delete the vast database he's gathered on possible terror cells-and on thousands of innocent Americans-months before 9/11. We follow National Security Agency Director Mike Hayden as he persuades the Bush administration to secretly monitor Americans based on a flawed interpretation of the law. And we see Poindexter return to government with a seemingly implausible idea: that the authorities can collect data about citizens and at the same time protect their privacy. After Congress publicly bans the Total Information Awareness program in 2003, we watch as it secretly becomes a "black program" at the NASA, then engaged in a massive surveillance of Americans' phone calls and e-mails. When the next crisis comes, our government will inevitably crack down on civil liberties, but it will be no better able to identify new dangers. This is the outcome of a dream first hatched almost three decades ago, and The Watchers is an engrossing, unnerving wake-up call."--Publisher's description"

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"History"
"Electronic books"
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"The watchers the rise of America's surveillance state"
"The watchers : the rise of America's surveillance state"@en
"The watchers : the rise of America's surveillance state"
"The Watchers The Rise of America's Surveillance State"@en
"The Watchers : The rise of America's surveillance state"

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