Fortress America: On the Frontlines of Homeland Security --An Inside Look at the Coming Surveillance State [Hardcover]

Matthew Brzezinski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2004

Heavily armed guards at the entrances to malls and restaurants. Citizens deemed “suspicious” taken away without formal charges or legal counsel. Would a “safe” America even look like America anymore?

One of the few journalists to penetrate the new counter terror initiative, Matthew Brzezinski offers an insider’s look at the new technology, laws, tactics, and persistent vulnerabilities of the post-9/11 era. The result is this startling, sometimes controversial look at what it will take to achieve genuine homeland security and what it may be like to live inside Fortress America

Is this what a safe America will look like?

• Cameras at airport ticket counters that can tell if you are stressed

• Satellites and surveillance equipment that can see through the walls of your home

• Computer programs capable of spotting abnormal behavior

• National ID “smart” cards encoding your personal, financial, and medical information required for electronic police spot checks

In the aftermath of September 11, a massive effort has been launched to protect us from another terrorist attack. But the costs of safeguarding our country will require not only unprecedented amounts of funding, but dramatic changes in the way Americans lead their everyday lives.

Is this the new price of freedom?

• Mandatory chips installed in all cell phones and automobiles that can locate you instantly within a dozen yards
• Patriot II legislation that can arbitrarily revoke citizenship and allow terrorist sympathizers to vanish without a trace

• Transponder implants that could be injected into the bodies of prisoners, foreign nationals, and perhaps one day all US citizens…

Such high-tech measures are not the stuff of science fiction but in many cases are already being implemented. As Brzezinski discovers, similar measures have been in use for years in security states like Israel. But will Americans trade liberty for security? Will they have a choice? And can even the most radical measures insure that a 9/11 style attack won’t happen again?

From an unheeded warning six years before the WTC disaster to dramatic war-game scenarios secretly conducted at Andrews Air Force Base and chilling on-site simulations of actual attacks, Fortress America paints a sobering picture of the future of freedom…and what life may be like in a maximum security state.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The nephew of former national security adviser Zbigniew, New York Times Magazine contributor Brzezinski (Casino Moscow) believes that the domestic American antiterrorist effort has lost momentum and that a new era of American intelligence has yet to dawn. He shows how the Department of Homeland Security has so far failed to connect federal and local authorities, expertly compares the U.S. as open society with Israel as security state, and recounts a chilling tale of the arrest and months-long detention of an Egyptian immigrant who had no connection to terrorists. Brzezinski goes on to imagine a U.S. of 2008, where a student and his associates are surveilled by a radio frequency identification system that can monitor just about anything and are guilty until proven innocent. A war game by a fictional White House staff grapples with a potential terrorist attack, while real terrorist attack response drills in U.S. cities show high levels of unpreparedness. Brzezinski's first-person at times mixes incongruously with policy analysis, and some assertions and speculations (such as "For Israel, abandoning the ruinous settlements and returning the land to the Palestinians was not likely to end terror") go unelaborated. But this breezy overview is bolstered by good reporting and grounded extrapolation.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In this look at the post-9/11 U.S., Brzezinski begins by giving us plenty to be scared about. Pretty much everything, he warns, is a potential target for terrorists: metropolitan waterfronts, interstate highways, subways, shopping centers, food-processing plants, and on and on. And pretty much anything can be turned into a weapon: a passenger ferry, the postal service, a computer with an Internet connection. He goes on to describe the various ways the American government may choose to protect its citizens, and his vision of a safe future is plenty frightening, too: pathogen sensors; face-recognition software at ATMs; cars that keep track of where their drivers have been; computer programs that can spot abnormal behavior; even implants to allow authorities keep track of the whereabouts of foreign nationals. At one point, Brzezinski requests that we ask ourselves when self-preservation ("homeland security") becomes paranoia. That's not an easy question to answer, but this abundantly provocative book forces us to think about its implications. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (August 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553803662
• ISBN-13: 978-0553803662
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #469,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Necessary Discourse, September 13, 2004

By 

Larkin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fortress America: On the Frontlines of Homeland Security --An Inside Look at the Coming Surveillance State (Hardcover)

FORTRESS AMERICA is a well written, engrossing account of what we know so far and what COULD happen if forces go unchecked. We are, thankfully, a government of checks and balances and while most of the extreme scenarios in this book may not become a reality, it makes me even more vigilant that small measures (like the Patriot Act) do not snowball into larger issues. The fact remains that the future is even more uncertain than ever and I hope to never live in a country that would put my name on a list (or search my home or detain me or my family or even worse) for buying this book. I want to thank Mr. Brzezinski for exercising his First Amendment rights and would recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about the fate of personal liberties in this country.
I'm sorry to see that Amazon.com has become another political forum, of which maybe we have too many, instead of a book forum. It is hard to separate the two here, but previous reviewers seem to think that the two go hand in hand. Matthew Brzezinski's FORTRESS AMERICA is a necessary look at the COMING (see subtitle) surveillance state. It's not here yet and will hopefully never be here--but to guard against that, Americans have must voice their concerns and let their fears be known. We're not talking about the ragged old man announcing the end of the world with a placard on his back; we're talking about a serious journalist with serious concerns. I, for one, am glad to have read this, whether Mr. Brzezinski's predictions come to light or not. At least someone is watchful and willing to be vocal about things like this--not an easy feat in these days of the Patriot Act.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, January 6, 2006

By 

Tom (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fortress America: On the Frontlines of Homeland Security --An Inside Look at the Coming Surveillance State (Hardcover)

This book does shed some light on previously little known topics. It is a book that must be read carefully.