Global Electronic Surveillance for Dummies
The New York Times gives a glowing review to "Chatter," a new book by Patrick Radden Keefe. The name derives from the so-called "chatter" allegedly bantered by terrorists on the Internet that makes it way into elevated threat levels.
The Times says the book is "filled with anecdotes, colorful quotes and arresting statistics" and is "breezily aired," breaking down the complex subject matter into easily understandable terms. It sounds interesting, if these quotes are representative:
The United States has fewer than 5,000 spies operating around the world, for example, but 30,000 eavesdroppers. The National Security Agency employs more mathematicians than any other organization in the world, and every three hours its spy satellites gather enough information to fill the Library of Congress. Menwith Hill, the American listening station in North Yorkshire, England, has a staff as large as MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service.
As for topic scope,
In a series of semiautonomous chapters, he describes Echelon, the vast electronic intelligence-gathering system operated by the United States and its English-speaking allies; surveys the current technology of global eavesdropping; and tries to sort out the vexed issue of privacy rights versus security demands in a world at war with terrorism.
The book even covers the late, not-great Total Information Awareness project:
Chatter" is often quite amusing. Mr. Keefe has great fun with Total Information Awareness, the ill-fated antiterrorist program announced by the Pentagon in the late summer of 2003. By linking private and government databases, Total Awareness would pick up on every electronic click, ping or chirp created by private citizens in the course of their daily lives.
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