No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State (original 2014; edição 2014)

A Journalist's Tale
Review of the Metropolitan Books hardcover edition (2014)
A pardon of Snowden & Assange seems improbable to many because -- even as Trump rails against the Deep State & feels victimized by exactly those exposed by these two -- he allows those who serve the Deep State (Pompeo, Grenell, John Kelly) to control him & he fears defying them. If Trump - after praising Assange's publications in 2016 & saying he was strongly considering pardoning Snowden for having exposed the spying abuses used against him - slinks out of the WH & allows Brennan, Clapper & Susan Rice to get their way, it will be a world-record cucking. - as tweeted by Glenn Greenwald, December 20, 2020
I read No Place to Hide as part of my reading survey of various books in relation to the 2020 American Election and the post-Election situation. Although it is not a direct tie-in, there was increased lobbying for Trump to pardon Snowden and Assange in his final days. This did not happen, as Greenwald predicted above. As a Canadian I’ve generally ignored American politics and elections in past years, but the drama of the situation in 2020/21 has heightened my interest.

No Place to Hide is a record of journalist Greenwald's experience in the lead-up, revelations, and aftermath of the Edward Snowden's disclosures of the extent of the NSA's/CIA's spying on American citizens and of the entire world. It starts with the dark comic story of how Snowden attempted to contact Greenwald several times prior to their actual meeting, when the journalist, casually almost missing the biggest story of his career, was too lazy to bother to install encryption on his computers in order to continue the discussion.

It then continues with the actual Snowden meetings in Hong Kong with filmmaker Laura Poitras & fellow journalist Ewen MacAskill. This also involves the tense standoffs with The Guardian newspaper as to whether they would actually follow through with printing Snowden's revelations. The middle section of the book is an extensive display of actual NSA/GCHQ etc. documents and powerpoint slides where the various agencies pat themselves on the back for the extent of their surveillance capabilities and the extent to which they can subvert all domestic and international legal privacy boundaries. This part does drag somewhat, but I can see its importance in displaying the extent of Snowden's document collection. It slowed my reading though until I decided to give up on using a magnifying glass to actually try to read all of the information on the slides and carried on with the text summaries only.

The book concludes with Greenwald's editorial on the importance of privacy and of an actual adversarial Fourth Estate of journalism in this current world climate which has quietly gone much beyond the dystopic predictions of Orwell's 1984 with the world population freely giving up much of their own privacy through the infections and attractions of BigTech and social media.

Trivia and Links
Glenn Greenwald's articles for The Guardian that disclosed Edward Snowden's whistleblowing are still available at that newspaper's website here. Look for the June 2013 articles.

Laura Poitras' film documentary of the Hong Kong meetings with Edward Snowden is called CitizenFour (2014). It won the Best Documentary Feature at the 87th Academy Awards aka The Oscars in February 2015.

Oliver Stone's fictionalized movie adaptation of the life of Edward Snowden, which includes scenes of the Hong Kong meetings, is called Snowden (2016). ( )

I read this when it first came out, then re-read. As a book, it's probably a 4-5. Greenwald himself has a lot of flaws but was undoubtedly (and somewhat accidentally, or at least despite his own efforts) at the center of one of the most important stories of modern times. There isn't very much new in this book vs. the huge amount of press coverage on the issue, and I definitely find the Snowden and Poitras takes more interesting than Greenwald's, but due to the overall importance of the issue, it's worth reading this book too. ( )

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recommended for everyone ( )

And what are they vacuuming up? A daily 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls, crank calls, dropped calls, robo-calls, Nigerian-investment e-mails, YouTube videos of Justin Booby and other types of communications. The banalities of a nation. Ladies and gentlemen, attend.

- - -

VOICE (female): Hello.

VOICE (male): It’s me.

WOMAN: (female, purring) Well, hello.

MAN: Darling, I want you to know I love you and want you to marry me.

WOMAN: Oh, yes, yes. Oh, Peter, yes.

MAN: Peter? I’m Harry! Isn’t this Melissa?

WOMAN: No, it’s Penelope.

MAN: Sorry, wrong number. (click)

- - -

NICELY: I got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere, and the weather’s clear. Can do?

BENNY: Can do. I'm pickin' Valentine, 'cause on the morning line, a guy has got him figured at five to nine.

NICELY: Can do. (click)

- - -

CUSTOMER: I need five super-grande monster pizzas with everything.

CLERK: Address?

CUSTOMER: 1600 Pennsylvania, N.W., west gate.

CLERK: Oh. DEFCON 3 special coming up. (click)

- - -

VOICE: (female robot) This is Rachel from Credit Card Services. This is your second and final notice --

VOICEOVER: (male, irritated) Promises, promises. Fifth time this week alone. (click)

- - -

VOICE (female, nasal): Is this Mr. John O’Brennan?

VOICE (male, irked): This is Mr. John O. Brennan. Who is this?

VOICE (female): Mr. O’Brennan, this is Miss Tomlin at AT&T. We have a $27.6 million unpaid bill for all the data and phone surveillance you and General David P. Trellis had us do for your company. Now when may we expect payment?

DCI BRENNAN: What are you doing on my private line?

MISS TOMLIN: Now, now, don’t get huffy. We at the phone company know a lot of things about your private line, including (paper crinkling) er, the one to Mme. LaFuchsia’s Leakywicks Massage Parlor and Bar & Grill (snort).

DCI BRENNAN: Do you know who I am?

MISS TOMLIN: Now, now, Mr. O’Brennan, you’re talking to someone who can detach all of your agency’s (snort) private lines, one massage parlor at a time. Starting with this one. Pay up. (click)

- - -

VOICE (female, young): Pizzas You Can't Refuse. How can I help you?

VOICE (male, definitely so): The, uh, Prime Minister is giving us 15 minutes to remove our drones from his airspace, and the chairman wants the, uh, prisoners returned, and I’ve got Lindsey Graham on Line 2.

VOICE (female, irked): Your pizzas are already on their way, Mr. President.

(both parties disconnected) ( )