The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State

Using exclusive access to key government insiders, Shane Harris chronicles the rise of America's surveillance state over the past 25 years and highlights a dangerous paradox: Our government's strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on the rest of us.

In 1983, Admiral John Poindexter, President Reagan's National Security Advisor, realized that the U.S. might have prevented the terrorist massacre of 241 Marines in Beirut, if intelligence agencies could have analyzed in real time the data they had on the attackers. Poindexter poured technical know-how and government funds into his dream — a system that would sift reams of information for signs of terrorist activity. Decades later, that elusive dream still captivates Washington. After 9/11, Poindexter returned to government with a controversial program, called Total Information Awareness, to detect the next attack. Today it has evolved into a secretly funded operation that can gather a trove of personal information on every American and millions of others worldwide.

Despite billions of dollars spent on this quest since the Reagan era, we still can't discern future threats in the vast data cloud that surrounds us all. But the government can now spy on its citizens with an ease that was impossible — and illegal — just a few years ago. Drawing on unprecedented access to the people who pioneered this high-tech spycraft, Harris shows how it has moved from the province of right-wing technocrats into the mainstream, becoming a cornerstone of the Obama administration's war on terror.

Harris puts us behind the scenes where twenty-first-century spycraft was born. We witness Poindexter quietly working from the private sector to get government to buy in to his programs in the early nineties. We see an Army major agonize as he carries out an order to delete the vast database he's gathered on possible terror cells — and on thousands of innocent Americans — months before 9/11. We follow National Security Agency Director Mike Hayden as he persuades the Bush administration to secretly monitor Americans based on a flawed interpretation of the law. And we see Poindexter return to government with a seemingly implausible idea: that the authorities can collect data about citizens and at the same time protect their privacy. After Congress publicly bans the Total Information Awareness program in 2003, we watch as it secretly becomes a black program at the NASA, then engaged in a massive surveillance of Americans' phone calls and e-mails.

When the next crisis comes, our government will inevitably crack down on civil liberties, but it will be no better able to identify new dangers. This is the outcome of a dream first hatched almost three decades ago, and The Watchers is an engrossing, unnerving wake-up call.

"Harris, a reporter for National Journal, details the rise of a 'band of mavericks' in national security and intelligence organizations that has erected 'an American surveillance state.' In this timely and admirably balanced account, Harris focuses on the role of a handful of key figures, including Reagan-era National Security Adviser John Poindexter, as they campaigned for information technology to identify terrorists. The controversial Poindexter started the campaign after the 1983 bombing of Marine barracks in Lebanon; the mission was imbued with greater urgency after September 11; with the support of the Bush administration, the National Security Agency (NSA) acquired a research project that Poindexter had developed called Total Information Awareness that uses advanced data-mining techniques to collect mountains of data — and has trapped countless innocent citizens in the NSA's 'electronic nets.' After the NSA's warrantless surveillance was exposed in 2005, Congress passed largely cosmetic reforms that left the surveillance state intact. Harris carefully examines how the nexus between terrorism and technology has complicated the age-old 'conflict between security and liberty' and calls for a national debate on the issue. This informative and dramatic narrative is an excellent place to start." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"A sharply written, wise analysis of the complex mashup of electronic sleuthing, law, policy and culture." Kirkus Reviews

"The Watchers provides an insightful glimpse into how Washington works and how ideas are marketed and sold in the back rooms of power." New York Times

"[Harris]he has turned what could have been the driest of policy studies into a riveting yarn of skulduggery and betrayal." San Francisco Chronicle

Using exclusive access to key insiders, Harris charts the rise of America's surveillance state over the past 25 years and highlights a dangerous paradox: The government's strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on civilians.

Shane Harris writes about electronic surveillance, intelligence, and counter-terrorism for National Journal in Washington, D.C.