The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com REVIEWED BY BOB KERREY Before Sept. 11, 2001, the National Security Agency bent over backwards to assure Americans that it respected their privacy. The supersecret intelligence agency's then-director, Gen. Michael Hayden, told Congress in April 2000 that if, at that very moment, Osama bin Laden himself were walking across the Peace Bridge from Niagara Falls, Canada, as soon as he reached the New York side "my agency must respect his rights against unreasonable search and seizure."

In The Shadow Factory, James Bamford's important and disturbing new book about the NSA, we learn that as the general spoke, two of bin Laden's men already had arrived on American soil and were taking flying lessons. We also learn that, contrary to the implication of Hayden's testimony, the NSA was intercepting their communications. A few months earlier the huge agency, based at Fort Meade, Md., 27 miles outside of Washington, had begun surveillance of a bin Laden operations center in Sana'a, Yemen. This was not just another intercept: Bin Laden had declared war on the United States, his organization had bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the NSA had good reason to suspect that he was plotting more attacks. As the 9/11 Commission later established, U.S. intelligence officials knew that al-Qaeda had held a planning meeting in Malaysia, found out the names of two recruits who had been present -- Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi -- and suspected that one and maybe both of them had flown to Los Angeles. Bamford reveals that the NSA had been eavesdropping for months on their calls to Yemen, yet the agency "never made the effort" to trace where the calls originated.

"At any time, had the FBI been notified, they could have found Hazmi in a matter of seconds. All it would have taken was to call nationwide directory assistance -- they would have then discovered both his phone number and address, which were listed in the San Diego phone directory," Bamford writes. "Similarly, if the NSA had traced any of the incoming calls to the [Yemen] ops center, they would have located two of the callers on California soil."

The 1990s brought a quadruple storm of changes that set the stage for the attack by al-Mihdhar, al-Hazmi and 17 other young men on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: the end of the Cold War, radically new ways for human beings to communicate, a geometric rise in the amount of electronic data available, and the increasing use of suicide as a technique in warfare. Bamford's book is the sobering story of how America's Cold War national security apparatus has struggled to respond to these changes.

By detailing the failures of the NSA and CIA, Bamford goes where the 9/11 Commission did not fully go. He convincingly makes the case that our intelligence problems had little to do with the limitations imposed on the NSA or other agencies; the NSA had all the legal authority it needed to monitor al-Qaeda's communications and was actively doing so before the 9/11 attacks. (In the hypothetical case of Osama bin Laden crossing into New York, he notes, the relevant law allowed for emergency eavesdropping for up to two days, in which time the NSA could easily have obtained a warrant from a special court to continue the surveillance.) Yet deep-seated divisions and rivalries among U.S. intelligence agencies helped the hijackers go undetected. Bamford explains that Hayden and other top NSA officials wanted to keep the agency's eavesdropping operations "as far away from U.S. territory as possible" for fear of being accused of illegally targeting American citizens, as happened in the 1970s. Rank-and-file NSA workers, meanwhile, resented CIA analysts for "treating them not as equals but as subordinates." And the CIA, in turn, had an almost pathological mistrust of the FBI.

In one riveting passage, Bamford describes how in January 2000 a CIA official refused to forward to the FBI an urgent report on al-Mihdhar's possible presence in the United States. When a low-ranking intelligence official insisted, "You've got to tell the bureau about this," a higher-up CIA officer "put her hand on her hip and said, 'Look, the next attack is going to happen in Southeast Asia -- It's not the FBI's jurisdiction. When we want the FBI to know about it, we'll let them know."

By exploring the current, post-9/11 operations of the NSA, Bamford also goes where congressional oversight committees and investigative journalists still struggle to go. Rather than finding out what went wrong in the run-up to 9/11 and disciplining those who made serious mistakes, the Bush administration declared its need for new authorities to wage a global war on terror. Congress agreed to most of the White House's demands, though we know from other sources that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle resisted some of the most extreme requests. According to Bamford, the NSA's expanded powers and resources enabled it to collect communications both inside and outside the United States. He quotes a former NSA employee as a witness to the agency's spying on the conversations of Americans who have no connection to terrorism. After suing the NSA for documents, the author obtained considerable evidence that telecommunication companies (with the notable exception of Qwest) knowingly violated U.S. law by cooperating with the NSA to tap fiber optic lines.

In impressive detail, The Shadow Factory tells how private contractors, including some little-known entities with foreign owners, have done the sensitive work of storing and processing the voices and written data of Americans and non-Americans alike. And Bamford warns of worse to come: "There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America. Only law ensures that we never fall into that abyss -- the abyss from which there is no return."

But here I begin my disagreements with the author. Tyranny is not a function of technology or of surveillance capabilities. Nor does law stand in its way. Tyranny's most reliable enemy is the preference of the American people -- and others on this planet -- for freedom, even if it means sacrificing a little security.

I also strongly disagree with Bamford's emphasis on U.S. foreign policy, and especially our support for Israel, as the motivator behind the Sept. 11 attacks. He cites one person who claims he never saw the 9/11 hijackers in prayer in the months before the attack. But there is too much evidence about the religious views of ringleader Mohammed Atta and the other plotters to discount the influence of radical Islamic fervor and to believe, instead, that they were motivated by anger over an Israeli bombing of Lebanese civilians in 1996; the author's apparent negativity toward Israel is a significant distraction from the content of his book. And though I believe there has been too great a tendency to demonize the 9/11 terrorists by calling them cowards and worse, Bamford is entirely too sympathetic to them for my taste. He refers to them as "soldiers," legitimizes their motives and makes them out to be 19 Davids slinging four deadly aircraft at the American Goliath.

Bamford also focuses too much on the U.S. Constitution. Terrorism is a global problem that requires a global solution. Thus, when President Bush took his lawyer's advice that he did not have to be concerned with international law when he was devising tactics to interrogate, incarcerate and bring suspected terrorists to justice, he put the nation's long-term security at risk.

Still, this revealing and provocative book is necessary reading, perhaps especially for members of Congress who annually reauthorize the work of the NSA. They should look again at the 9/11 Commission's recommendations to reform the congressional committees that watch over the executive branch agencies responsible for protecting us. Unless that oversight is strengthened, the fears expressed in The Shadow Factory will only grow.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Review

“Important and disturbing.... This revealing and provocative book is necessary reading.” —The Washington Post Book World

“There have been glimpses inside the NSA before, but until now no one has published a comprehensive and detailed report on the agency.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Fascinating.... Bamford has distilled a troubling chapter in American history.” —Bloomberg News --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 395 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (October 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385521324
• ISBN-13: 978-0385521321
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #26,000 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Looking Under Rocks, October 17, 2008

By	Retired Reader (New Mexico) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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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.

42 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and Revealing!, October 15, 2008

By	Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Bamford opens by telling us that by 2008 NSA had become the most intrusive spy organization, secretly filtering millions of phone calls and e-mails/hour, programmed to listen for thousands of names and phone numbers. The watch list once contained 20 names - now its 500,000.

He then goes on to calmly describe how airport screening was easily evaded - true, a number of the 9/11 hijackers were given extra screening, but they had no explosives and their knives were less than 4" long. Pilots were ordered to place their aircraft on autopilot when the flights were taken over, and to move to the rear of the aircraft. The hijackers then turned off the airplanes' transponders, making them invisible to ground controllers.

Ironically, just as the NSA was becoming alarmed over the realization that some terrorists (and hijackers) were in the U.S., several of them were amidst NSA employees in local shops and on local highways near the agency.

Prior to 9/11, NSA head General Hayden had scaled back its intrusiveness out of fear of another Senator Church-type investigation. The NSA had been eavesdropping on them for years (without comprehension of what they were doing), and refused to pass information onto other agencies.

After 9/11 a secret program within the agency began, using an estimated 80-90 outside civilians that ignored FISA warrant requirements. Some objected, claiming that FISA requirements would not impede terrorist surveillance (eg. the warrant could be obtained as late as 72-hours after the fact, and were rarely refused), while Hayden pointed out that the forms and processing took time, and Cheney's Addington was outraged that under Bush II it had become a bit less than a rubber stamp.

Bamford goes on to reveal outcomes of these relaxed standards - considerable listening to private conversations between American military in Iraq and their families, etc. Also there is the strong possibility that those listening to conversations misjudge the intent (eg. An Iraqi says he's planning to deliver a load of melons - that may or may not be code for IEDs, and any erroneous decisions made on this limited information by those listening in (generally with limited Arabic fluency) bring harm or death to those involved.

Even more frustrating is that it is impossible to determine what is legal vs. illegal since NSA conduct is now governed by secret rules. Regardless, millions (possibly billions) are wasted as career CIA and NSA employees are hired by private contractors and placed back at their old jobs (often doing very little of potential value), computer systems between the CIA and National Counter-Terrorism Center are incompatable, and the entire intelligence system lacks accountability.

Frustrating NSA, on the other hand, was the fact that much international communications traffic to/from the U.S. is carried on fiber-optic cables - difficult/impossible to wiretap. This has led to NSA agreements with phone companies to divert cable traffic so that NSA could listen in.

All these conversations are recorded and stored in a new NSA facility in Texas. Readers are left wondering where this will all end and how much money is wasted.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Be very scared..., January 16, 2009

By	Stephen J. Snyder "Socratic Gadfly" (Lancaster, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Of what?

Of all sorts of stuff, James Bamford makes clear:
* NSA incompetence;
* NSA politicization
* Telecoms' long history, well before 9/11, of willingness to illegally become NSA lackeys;
* NSA data overload;
* NSA privatization of ever-more functions;
* A largely bipartisan sign-off on all this;
* And, though not directly addressed by Bamford, the flip side of unifying all intelligence services under a DNI.

Following uyp on his previous investigations of the National Security Agency, Bamford has two themes here -- the post-9/11 and Islamic-world threat NSA's growth and strategy, or lack thereof; and, the post-Internet rise attempts to not only gather communications, but process, crunch and analyze them.

Beyond looking at the NSA's snooping, especialy when taking a look ahead to the future, Bamford asks what this means in possible further attacks on civil liberties; new NSA programs; NSA future demands for computing and electric power; and more.

A must read.