Author | Glenn Greenwald |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Global surveillance disclosures, Edward Snowden |
Genre | Non-fiction |
Published | 2014, Metropolitan Books |
Media type | Print, e-book |
Pages | 272 pages |
ISBN |
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State is a 2014 non-fiction book by American investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald. It was first published on May 13, 2014 through Metropolitan Books and details Greenwald's role in the global surveillance disclosures as revealed by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The documents from the Snowden archive cited in the book are freely available online.
The book consists of five chapters; Contact, Ten Days in Hong Kong, Collect It All, The Harm of Surveillance, and the Fourth Estate, plus an introduction and an epilogue. In the introduction Greenwald discusses how his background as a blogger on surveillance and wiretapping by the American government attracted Edward Snowden and the nature, legality, and evolution of such practices in the United States. Greenwald concludes by discussing how a global surveillance network has been created with the assistance of technology companies and the unique role of the internet in human history as a facilitator of such surveillance.
In No Place to Hide Greenwald discusses how he became involved with the 2013 global surveillance disclosures. He began by traveling to Hong Kong to meet Edward Snowden, who had contacted Greenwald as an anonymous source purporting to have evidence of government surveillance. As Greenwald continued to investigate he uncovered more information that he later published, to much controversy. In the book Greenwald also discusses establishment media, which he states will traditionally avoid publishing anything that would put them at odds with the government and as such, are less helpful when it comes to the interests of the general public.
In his review for The Washington Post, law professor David Cole called No Place to Hide an important and illuminating book but wrote, "It would have been more important and illuminating were Greenwald able to acknowledge that the choices we face about regulating surveillance in the modern age are difficult and that there are no simple answers."Slate gave a mostly positive review, stating that while the book "doesn’t offer an in-depth portrait of the leaker" it does serve as a good "primer" on "what was at stake when he downloaded the government’s most precious secrets onto a thumb drive".