- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Random House (Feb 15 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1400060346
- ISBN-13: 978-1400060344
- Product Dimensions: 16 x 2.8 x 24.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 544 g
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#436,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #78 in Books > Nonfiction > Politics > United States
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The secret global information network that has come together under the umbrella name "Echelon" is detailed here by Yale Law student Keefe. While Great Britain led the way in the mid-'70s, Keefe marks the U.S., Kenya, Pakistan, Singapore and many others as current participants, taking satellite pictures from 10 miles up, sending submarines to hover silently and aiming portable laser devices to pick up conversations inside rooms. All the technologies are impressive, but the burgeoning mountain of data they produce, Keefe argues, does not always prove useful. Likewise, he illustrates how compact electronics can give the opposition a large ability to deceive the Echelon network, and/or to modify their behavior when they detect that they are under surveillance. Ultimately, Keefe makes a case that electronics have not solved the ancient dilemma of deciphering the enemy's intentions (what he is actually planning) from his capabilities (all the things he could choose to do). To prove his point, Keefe cites the mass of rumor and innuendo that failed to give specific warning of the attack on the U.S.S. Cole as well as Colin Powell's U.N. proclamation that Iraq possessed nerve gas. And, Keefe says, ordinary citizens pay a substantial cost in presumed privacy, as well as in potential for abuses of confidential data. Intelligent and polemical, Keefe's study is sure to spark some political chatter of its own. Agent, Tina Bennett at Janklow & Nesbitt. (On sale Feb. 15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Relying on open sources and those claiming inside knowledge about the furtive National Security Agency, the wisely skeptical Keefe often proffers the belief that the more people talk, the less they probably know. Still, he gathers enough information from the periphery--retired intelligence officers, activist opponents of intelligence operations, and scattered espionage scandals--to depict the general functions of the NSA, which consist of cryptography and electronic interception, and its part in the intelligence alliance of the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Generally known though not officially acknowledged, the alliance's interception program, supposedly code-named Echelon, was the subject of breathless media interest in 2000. It sparked an investigation by indignant European parliamentarians, which Keefe recounts, along with his gleanings from Danish reporters about their country's place in Echelon. Critical though open-minded, Keefe was denied the access to the NSA that was granted to author James Bamford (The Puzzle Palace, 1982), but Keefe's book will reach readers interested in intelligence as well as those worried by it. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
YOU CANNOT HELP but note the juxtaposition. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
YOU CANNOT HELP but note the juxtaposition. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.4 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A page-turner...and Spooky, Mar 14 2005
By jddavis - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping (Hardcover)
The author takes pretty complex issues,like how U.S. intelligence eavesdrops on phone calls and emails, and presents them in a fast-paced and easy to understand way. Reading the book you realize that anyone can listen to anyone these days and privacy is disappearing very quickly. Most of the book is actually about how you go about writing about somethnig that is so secret that there is no accountability to congress, not to mention the press. But what makes it a good read is that you experience that process along with the author, the frustration of trying to figure out just how much surveillance our government does and how good at it they are. For those who don't know a lot about how the U.S. listens in, this book will probably freak you out, and it might make you angry as well. Either way, you won't put it down.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Entertaining, Mar 23 2005
By William J. Vidal "William" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping (Hardcover)
Its written more like spy novel, yet it still deals honestly with the very important issues of our intelligence network. I think the author is dead on when he talks about our need for more human intelligence. He does this with numerous anecdotes, which are both interesting and very entertaining. Overall, the presentation is very well balanced without the polemic we so often hear coming out of most contemporary writers. Entertaining and a must read for anyone interested in our national defense
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unnerving, entertaining, and prescient., Feb 19 2006
By P. Willson - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping (Hardcover)
Good place to get started on communications intelligence -- especially in light of the Bush Admin domestic eavesdropping flap -- that makes Keefe look prescient.The book is written in entertaining, digestible yet intelligent style, only infrequently forced or self-indulgent. His discussion of the TIA program is hysterical -- and chilling. I didn't mind the self-report/travelogue aspect since part of his purpose is to characterize various sources and 'names' in the field and show how geographically broad it is. That in turn is part of his larger goal: "Just how much of this is paranoid, and how much is reality?" He illustrates that issue and the trouble finding balance by his variably successful efforts to meet people or get information from them. (He comes off sounding like a bemused boy scout at times as he careens among disaffected spies, muck-raking journalists, conspiracy theorists, and the occasional helpful 'grown-up.')
I would have liked more on the emerging technical aspects of Comint, but as Keefe repeatedly cautions, whatever 'they' (officialdom) will let you know about their real capabilities is already ten years out of date; what you can dig up on your own is probably wildly exaggerated -- but you can't be sure. Whenever he gets close to 'state of the art' reporting, his sources worry about exposing their potential profit-margin as much as breaching security. But that's his next book, perhaps. (He also gives the impression he worried about being responsible with what he revealed.)
Recommended -- a readable book that will make you say, 'Yikes!' a couple times a chapter.
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