No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL VIET DINH took his seat in La Colline restaurant on Capitol Hill and signaled for a cup of coffee..." (more)
Key Phrases: data revolution, information awareness project, civil liberties activists, United States, White House, Justice Department (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

George Orwell envisioned Big Brother as an outgrowth of a looming totalitarian state, but in this timely survey Robert O'Harrow Jr. portrays a surveillance society that's less centralized and more a joint public/private venture. Indeed, the most frightening aspect of the Washington Post reporter's thoroughly researched and naggingly disquieting chronicle lies in the matter-of-fact nature of information hunters and gatherers and the insatiable systems they've concocted. Here is a world where data is gathered by relatively unheralded organizations that smooth the way for commercial entities to find the good customers and avoid dicey ones. Government of course too has an interest in the data that's been mined. Information is power, especially when trying to find the bad guys. The mutually compatible skills and needs shared by private and public snoopers were fusing prior to the attacks of 9/11, but the process has since gone into hyperdrive. O'Harrow weaves together vignettes to record the development of the "security-industrial complex," taking pains to personalize his chronicle of a movement that's remained (perhaps purposefully) faceless. Recognizing the appeal of state-of-the-art systems that can track down a murderer/rapist with heretofore unimaginable speed, the author recognizes, too, that the same devices can mistakenly destroy reputations and cast a pall over a free society. In a post-9/11 world where homeland security often trumps personal liberty, this work is an eye-opener for those who take their privacy for granted. --Steven Stolder

From Publishers Weekly

The amount of personal data collected on ordinary citizens has grown steadily over the decades, and after 9/11, corporations that had been amassing this information largely for marketing purposes saw an opportunity to strengthen their ties with the government. But what do we really know about these data collectors, and are they trustworthy? O'Harrow, a Pulitzer finalist who covers privacy and technology issues for the Washington Post, tracks the explosive growth of this surveillance industry, with keen attention to the problems that "inevitable mistakes" along the way have created in mainstream society, from victims of identity theft who have been placed in financial jeopardy to travelers detained at the airport because of the similarity of their names to those of criminal suspects. O'Harrow gives the government's push for increased surveillance heavy play, but he effectively presents the story's many sides, as when he juxtaposes the perspectives of a Justice Department attorney, a civil liberties activist and Senator Patrick Leahy in the first chapter. His evenhanded account underscores the caveats of surveillance, as well-intentioned people can deploy technologies for all the right reasons only to see their apparatuses misused later on. This is a thought-provoking, comprehensive account that strikes the right balance between dismissive and alarmist.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743254805
• ISBN-13: 978-0743254809
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #552,139 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It Can Happen Here, and It Already Is Happening, February 13, 2005

By	Steve Koss (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

You've rented a car to drive from Connecticut to Virginia. You head south on I-95, but at times, your speed creeps up to 80 mph like many of the drivers around you. Finally, you stop to buy gas but your credit card is rejected at the pump. The reason? The company who rented you the car has been monitoring your driving in real time. Not only that, they've fined you three times, at $150 per violation, for speeding, and already deducted it from your credit card. Sound impossible? It's not, and Robert O'Harrow's NO PLACE TO HIDE describes how car rental companies can do it, and have already done it.

Perhaps you have never heard of Acxiom, Seisint, ChoicePoint, HNC Software, TransCore, Searchspace, and Verint? Well, that's just the way those companies want it. And they are just some of the companies who know all about you - your name, address, and social security number, every place you've ever lived, your credit histories, who your friends are, what you say and do on the Internet, where you travel, even your faces, fingerprints, and DNA. In the interest of catching terrorists and preventing terrorism, federal and local law enforcement agencies have increasingly turned to these companies for help - all conveniently situated outside the privacy laws and Patriot Act restrictions and free to collect virtually any information they can lay their hands on. The result is a boom in the "total information awareness" business that is creating a world of commercial "big brothers." It is a world about which most Americans are blissfully, and foolishly, unaware.

Faster machines, bigger databases, more networking, and microminiaturization to the level of flea-sized RFID chips and "smart dust" will only make these systems more and more pervasive. But as O'Harrow repeatedly demonstrates, mistakes get made and innocent people's lives are ruined without recourse. One of the strengths of NO PLACE TO HIDE is the author's retelling of nightmarish occurrences that victimized innocent American citizens, stories that resound with the eerie randomness and facelessness of Kafka's THE TRIAL. The author points out as well that system missions creep from anti-terrorism to criminal behavior to ... what? Furthermore, he demonstrates that these systems are so uncontrolled an open-ended in their use, law enforcement personnel can use them for any reason whatsoever, even for personal reasons or for personal gain. As O'Harrow quotes one sheriff's deputy from Michigan, "There isn't anybody, anywhere in law enforcement, that doesn't check people out. If they say they don't I'd stake you a hundred that they're lying."

NO PLACE TO HIDE is not without shortcomings that render it a 4-star rating rather than 5 stars. To begin with, O'Harrow's writing style is a bit tedious, employing more or less the same dramatic and illustrative devices in each chapter. As a result, the book feels longer and more repetitive than it really is. Second, by striving mightily to stay even-handed, the author creates an odd distance to subject matter that should be raising his hackles and creating a greater sense of outrage or dread. Third, the book is so full of little-known company names, products and services, and governmental agencies, they tend to blend into a sort of surveillance industry soup. A few well-conceived charts or diagrams would have been invaluable in sorting out the players. Finally, the book ends without so much as a word on what should be done to bring the post-9/11, Patriot Act-inspired information and surveillance crusade back under some semblance of citizen control.

Nevertheless, it's fair to say that O'Harrow's book is indeed a harrowing look into a 1984-ish, MINORITY REPORT future. Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, you're likely to find much to disturb you in this eye-opening book. NO PLACE TO HIDE outlines the framework for an America few of us would knowingly choose, evidence (if any more was needed) that Osama bin Laden's 9/11 plan succeeded far beyond anything he could possibly have dreamed. After all, could he ever have imagined being able to turn us so aggressively against ourselves? Or, to quote Ben Franklin in what is probably the best sentence in the book, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." When are we finally going to wake up from our 9/11 stupor and heed Mr. Franklin? Perhaps NO PLACE TO HIDE is the alarm we need.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Timely Book For Troubled Times, January 21, 2005

By	L.Ray "L. Ray" (Va) - See all my reviews

No Place To Hide is a crucial and essential book to read for an eye opening factual account of data collection and privacy issues all Americans face. Mr. O'Harrow has written a book with meticulous attention to details, facts and reveals the main players involved with the collection of data of every aspect of daily American lives and how that data is being supplied to any government agency that cares to purchase it.

O'Harrow exposes the serious issue of private data technology companies and their marriage to government agencies, a marriage that is thriving while unchecked and ungoverned by guidelines or laws to protect every American's basic right to Privacy.

This book leads one to formulate the question "Is giving up my basic rights to privacy and living in a unrestricted, constantly growing complex of surveillance, data collection and selling of that data to any government agency going to make my life a more secure and safe one?

No Place To Hide is a concise and frighteningly revealing book that all Americans should read. O'Harrow arms us with an inside look at a growing partnership between private industry and government that needs to be controlled. A book that should remind all American's that we do have a voice in our Government and that we have serious Privacy and Civil Liberty issues at hand that we need to address as a nation.

E. Ray

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thought Provoking, Mandatory Read!!!, January 6, 2005

By	Mindspeakr (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

O'Harrow's book reads like a riveting spy novel. The stakes are high. How can America catch terrorists before they strike again? How can government help Americans feel safe in these uncertain times? The answer, according to powerful, self-styled, selfless techno-patriots is to buy their technology - lots of it - and records that have been amassed by commercial data brokers on every single American with details on the most intimate aspects of our lives ranging from where we live, where we bank, what we buy and how we like our sex - records that are often fraught with mistakes that finger innocents as criminals, deadbeats or worse.

It's a kind of science fiction nightmare where J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy have been reincarnated into big business seeking to profit off the fears of the post 9/11 world - only it's real, it's revolting and the politicians and bureaucrats are often complicit. If the techno-patriots are going to save us from the next Mohamed Atta, who's going to save us from them? Can they really do it, or is it all smoke and mirrors in the name of profiteering? Are there alternatives that are better, faster, more cost effective, reliable and less intrusive? Sadly, these questions are the cliff hangers that go unanswered in O'Harrow's thought provoking book. There is no protagonist - only a bunch of characters - often seedy - who are out to convince America that you'll be safer if government can peek at your knickers on demand.

In a year where the U.S. will begin to implement Intelligence Reform legislation, the Patriot Act is up for review, and deficits are at all time highs to fight the war on terror, No Place to Hide is particularly timely. O'Harrow sets the table beautifully - it's up to every reader to decide whether America can stomach the meal being served. This is a mandatory read for policymakers and anyone who cares about what it means to live in America.