The Shadow Factory cover art

The Shadow Factory

The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America

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About this listen

Today’s National Security Agency is the largest, most costly, and most technologically advanced spy organization the world has ever known. It is also the most intrusive, secretly filtering millions of phone calls and e-mails an hour in the United States and around the world. Half a million people live on its watch list, and the number grows by the thousands every month. Has America become a surveillance state?
In The Shadow Factory, James Bamford, the foremost expert on the National Security Agency, charts its transformation since 9/11, as the legendary code breakers turned their ears away from outside enemies, such as the Soviet Union, and inward to enemies whose communications increasingly crisscross America.
Fast-paced and riveting, The Shadow Factory is about a world unseen by Americans without the highest security clearances. But it is a world in which even their most intimate whispers may no longer be private.©2008 James Bamford; (P)2008 Books on Tape
Americas Freedom & Security Politics & Government United States World Espionage National Security Middle East Surveillance Military Iran Soviet Union Imperial Japan Africa Computer Security Cyber Warfare Air Force

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Critic reviews

A Washington Post Notable Book

“Important and disturbing. . . . This revealing and provocative book is necessary reading . . . Bamford goes where the 9/11 Commission did not fully go.”
—Senator Bob Kerrey, The Washington Post Book World

“Fascinating. . . . Bamford has distilled a troubling chapter in American history.”
Bloomberg News

“At its core and at its best, Bamford’s book is a schematic diagram tracing the obsessions and excesses of the Bush administration after 9/11. . . . There have been glimpses inside the NSA before, but until now no one has published a comprehensive and detailed report on the agency. . . . Bamford has emerged with everything except the combination to the director’s safe.”
The New York Times Book Review

“Engaging. . . . Chilling. . . . Bamford is able to link disparate facts and paint a picture of utter, compounded failure—failure to find the NSA’s terrorist targets and failure to protect American citizens’ communications from becoming tangled in a dragnet.”
The San Francisco Chronicle

“The bad news in Bamford’s fascinating new study of the NSA is that Big Brother really is watching. The worse news . . . is that Big Brother often listens in on the wrong people and sometimes fails to recognize critical information. . . . Bamford convincingly argues that the agency . . . broke the law and spied on Americans and nearly got away with it.”
The Baltimore Sun
All stars
Most relevant
This book discusses the NSAs eavesdropping programs in great detail across a wide time range in recent American history. There is a lot of detail, though I myself struggled a little with the large volume of names and locations, especially given that I am not based in America, and am not familiar with American politics.

For anyone with some basic understanding of this topic but interested in learning more, I think this would be a great resource. Others however may at times find it a little difficult to follow.

Overall i would however recommend this title.

complex and thorough

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I've read a couple of Bamford's other books, and was hoping that this would be an up to date history of NSA. Bamford's allows his evident dislike of George W. Bush and the Iraq war to show, and the book becomes a whiny civil liberties polemic in parts. it has also dated terribly in the years since publication

Not quite what I was expecting

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