“There have been glimpses inside the NSA before, but until now no one has published a comprehensive and detailed report on the agency . . . Mr. Bamford has emerged with everything except the combination to the director’s safe.” –New York Times Book Review

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.

Print length

0 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Random House Audio
Publication date

September 30, 2008
Dimensions

5.07 x 1.17 x 5.93 inches
ISBN-10

0739370731
ISBN-13

978-0739370735
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Editorial Reviews

Review

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

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Audio; Abridged edition (September 30, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Audio CD ‏ : ‎ 0 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0739370731
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0739370735
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.07 x 1.17 x 5.93 inches

Customer Reviews:
4.3 394 ratings

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Robert Foley

Reads like a History Book ( Which it is) Excellent.

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2023

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Excellent rear . Author see's it as it was.

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2008

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This is the latest book by James Bamford about what is usually called the "super secret" National Security Agency (NSA). Bamford has established himself as the public chronicler of the NSA and has done some impressive reporting on an agency famous for its almost impenetrable secrecy.

First it should be noted that much of the secrecy that envelopes NSA is absolutely justified. The intelligence cliché' of `protecting sources and methods' has real meaning within the Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID) of the agency. The ability to collect and process electronic signals carrying important information is actually quite fragile and can be easily lost through inadvertent or ill-considered disclosure. Such losses have occurred far too often and do adversely affect U.S. National Security.

That being said it is also true that the blanket of secrecy can also be used to conceal incompetence, ill-legal activities, and enormous waste. This is why congressional and executive branch oversight are so important in keeping the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) honest. Unfortunately, NSA is a `technical' collection agency which means that the eyes of its nominal monitors tend to glaze over when its programs are discussed in any detail. This situation was exacerbated by NSA's former director General Hayden who was able to walk that thin line between telling congress what it wanted to hear and avoiding any real involvement in NSA operations.

This is why Bamford's books in general and this latest one in particular are so important. He is not accurate in every thing he reports about NSA nor do his informants understand all of the technical issues. Yet overall this book is a service to the cause of good government and raises a host of red flags that ought to be looked into by congress.

In this book he discusses three inter-related issues: first, there is the failure of NSA, CIA and the FBI to share vital information prior to 9/11 and their collective failures to effectively analyze available data; second, there is NSA's reluctant but undoubted subversion of Constitutional rights of privacy accorded to all in the U.S. both citizens and visitors; and finally there is the festering problem of the use of contractors for core missions by all of the agencies of the IC and the general haze of corruption hanging over all government contracting processes. NSA appears to have some particularly serious issues in this regard.

When any government or part of government operates behind a curtain secrecy with ineffective oversight it is an invitation to corruption and abuse of power. Bamford has done his best to shine a light on this aspect of NSA.

148 people found this helpful

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Nolo Contendre

Freedom traded for security = neither (B. Franklin)

Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2013

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Ben Franklin has been paraphrased in a number of ways, the essence of which is that those who would trade essential liberties for security deserve (and by implication are likely to achieve) neither freedom nor security.
Drumford's "The Shadow Factory" gives an alarming and comprehensive context to the disclosures recently made by Snowdon, the NSA contractor and former employee who leaked the NSA's internal documentation of its clearly unlawful wiretapping of American Citizens in violation of the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, commenced by George Bush and continued by Barrack Obama. FISA - this is scary - was passed precisely because the NSA had been illegally wiretapping Americans without warrants since the days of Harry Truman. Anyway, you get the point, it's all put into context.
This is a very good book, well researched, well organized and put together. The techno stuff is fascinating, even if you don't really grasp it; it's fairly general. It should SERIOUSLY bother anyone, regardless of where on the political spectrum they might fall. One must remember that the people working for the Gestapo, the Stasi and the KGB, along with the governments they worked for, all thought they were doing what was best for their country. The message is clear: if you want to retain your freedoms, then you (that is, the citizenry) better keep a sharp eye and short leash on those folks.

8 people found this helpful

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Conor B. Dugan

A Fascinating, Albeit Very Biased Account

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2010

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James Bamford has written a fascinating account of the National Security Agency and the technology and techniques employed by the NSA pre- and post-9/11. At times the book reads like a novel and is incredibly engaging. At other points, the book becomes tedious as the reader becomes lost in discussion of terabytes, gigabytes, and all the various bytes. The biggest flaw in Bamford's book though isn't the writing, it is his personal biases that shine through from page 1 through the end. Bamford clearly finds no credibility in the arguments for the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- it seems ultimately even with the version John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller, Jim Comey, and Jack Goldsmith signed off on -- and other NSA programs. Examples of his bias shining through: "Nor did he [Goldsmith] share their fever for turning the presidency into a monarchy" p. 279; and "At a time when the NSA needed a Jim Comey or a Bob Mueller, it had only a three-star sycophant unwilling to protect the agency from the destructive forces of Cheney and Addington" p. 289. Or there is his disingenuous description of officials who had served in the Bush administration challenging its assertions. He talks about Richard Clarke and Rand Beers, the former a very public critic of the Bush administration, and the latter, an advisor to Senator Kerry in 2004 campaign. Then there are times when he contradicts himself talking about how speed was lost by the system while writing this against a backdrop in which he considers much of what the NSA is doing to be lawless.

None of this should stop you from picking up this fascinating read. But unlike other books in the similar broad genre of foreign policy/national security (I think of Ben Wittes Law and the Long War or Thomas Ricks' Fiasco) be on alert that Bamford lacks the same sort of good objective reporting of such fine writers.

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Cliente Amazon

libro come nuovo

Reviewed in Italy on November 13, 2023

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perfetto , praticamente libro nuovo!!!!
e imballato con cura

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James 'error' Campbell

A Study on Our Watchers

Reviewed in Canada on December 14, 2013

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I cannot authoritatively assert what makes this book relevant; except to indicate its substantiation of the agency behind the leaks of Edward Snowden.

I had already known exactly what was contained inside these pages before reading it, because it is only logical. Our technological society is being monitored whole-cloth by a titan surveillance apparatus with a global scope. Many of those whom I discuss these topics with, insist quite earnestly that 'the Shadow Factory' is not concerned with a democratic, law abiding citizen such as myself. They assemble justification that it is for our protection that the NSA exists and functions in a capacity, in which we may extract safety for ourselves and others: a desirable outcome.

This aside, we all should know that within the light, there is a strong possibility of emerging darkness. With every sunrise there is a promise of a sunset. Even in the ambiguous account of 'the Bible' -feel as you may about it- we observe Lucifer, an angel, falling from grace to become Satan. I have no doubt at all that this is the potential for our protectorate, the National Security Agency, regardless of its current image or function. James Bamford is in himself a fairly shadowy figure, kept on the periphery of mainstream discussion: I only bought this book because I watch 'Democracy Now' (an online independent news source). It stands to logic that Bamford is not referenced frequently these days, or turned to popular account as an authority, solely because he speaks in the interest of us, the people.

I did not particularly enjoy the beginning chapters of "The Shadow Factory". The substance of the start of this book, is focused narrowly in its displaying the security failures preventing the attacks on September 11 2001. It turns out, that these attacks were conducted and planned in close proximity to the NSA facilities and even literally under the observance of various law enforcement authorities (who detected the activities, but conveniently dropped the ball). It should be old news by now the literal impotency in stopping the largest single act of terror in the history of modern society.

I now have questions. What is to become of our advanced industrial society, we the participants of the 'free world'? I figure if you are reading this, you should know a portion of reality, in its bearing in actual fact. Surely we are in grave danger, though I have conducted many thought experiments as to why and literally, it is not because of terrorism. In my opinion we need to engage ourselves in formulating societal structures into function of just and fair law; international or otherwise, socialized profit, a direct reflection of the needs of the whole. I say this for no other intent than practical measurement to ensure species survival, which is, at this point, certainly not guaranteed.

If the NSA gains the wrong direction, which it may have already, then nothing will allow its correction and we will no longer be able to survive as ourselves in freedom, alive or not.

One person found this helpful

M. Palmer

Don't Read This Review, The NSA Might Be Snooping

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2008

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If you think I'm being paranoid, I'm not. It is highly likely that this review & anyone who reads it online have been swept up into the data vacuum cleaner of the NSA for analysis. Though this book is largely about the US's National Security Agency, that eavesdrops on the world's electronic communications, it is as equally relevant to the UK with GCHQ (our NSA) being intimately involved with American eavesdropping.

Be aware, that in parts, this book can be quite technical, as the NSA use the world's most powerful supercomputers to sort through all the billions of e-mails & phone calls from around the world. You'll find out what a petaflop is! It also might make people who are supporters of George Bush hot under the collar as Bamford is clearly anti-Bush. However, it is a fascinating & frightening read about what they are already capable of doing & what they will soon be capable of- nothing less than the systematic profiling of the whole US population based on their web searches, telephone conversations, credit card purchases, etc. The NSA have developed an artificial intelligence that can basically tell how people think through these activities.

The NSA has too long been shrouded in secrecy; this is a timely drawing back of the curtain that updates into Bamford's back catalogue of books about the NSA. It is clear the NSA has a vital mission in fighting terrorism & espionage, but at what price to freedom & democracy?

I just wonder how long it is before there's a knock on the door....

32 people found this helpful

M. M

Creepy, tecnicaly accurate

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 24, 2016

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Updated to the Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets.
Describes exactly where the taps were placed on the early East, Central and West switches, town, road, building, room number and all! -this should scare you if you think you had some privacy before on the internet, now there is none at all.Most telling , it describes exactly how snooping on you has been outsourced to Korea, India and China, where there are no laws to stop it, and results are sent back to NSA. Gives a LOT of detail, a lot of it technical. A tour-de-force. Describes exactly why there is no internet privacy on your surfing, email, texting, twitting etc and all Government guarantees are false. If you are from the Colonies (eg" America) I would be pretty mad about the selling of you.

Paul_O

Sequel to body of secrets

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 8, 2013

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HAving read the first book, then having this recommended - it was an obvious purchase.

Not sure about the sellers description (New) as it seems used to me, but the book itself is a great read - just like Body of 'Secrets.

Whether you work in the Information Security industry - or find the recent news around PRISM interesting - this book is certainly worth seeking out. Trouble is, it would appear that there haven't been many editions published - which might explain some of the crazy prices for the hardback (and my "new" copy)

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The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America Audio CD – Audiobook, September 30, 2008

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