Categories
Education Reading

Latest Read: No Place to Hide

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald. Glenn is an American journalist, author, and former lawyer with a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald

Glenn initially founded a law firm concentrating on First Amendment litigation. He later began writing for Salon and then for The Guardian. He contributed to their 2014 Pulitzer Prize. Glenn was also one of three reporters who won the 2013 George Polk Award.

In 2014, he cofounded The Intercept until his resignation in October 2020. He has since began self-publishing on Substack. Glenn’s book is a focus to the request made by Edward Snowden to contact Glenn in 2013 regarding US surveillance.

So Glenn documents how was initially contacted and actually did not respond thinking the outreach was a fake attempt. Edward only allowed himself to be an anonymous source with evidence of US government spying.

In fact, after Snowden reached out repeatedly through encrypted channels, Glenn did agree to travel to Hong Kong. This turned out to be the digital version of The Pentagon Papers leak by Daniel Ellsberg.

Starting in Hong Kong

During a tense series of meetings with Snowden over two week Glenn is addressing not only the leaks but also the larger global implications of our high tech surveillance state. needless to say when it was revealed the US government was tapping the phone of West German Chancellor Angela Merkel the global furor was intense to say the least.

Life on the run

Many have noted that Glenn’s writing is certainly like reading an intense spy novel. In fact, it is actually minus Snowden as the spy. However it would be a black eye for the US Government once the incredible details of this intensive collection of data was revealed. Then Glenn addressed the nature of secrecy, the impact of privacy for not only American citizens but also foreign leaders, companies and organizations.

Tell the hard truth first

In conclusion, Glenn reveals the background to one of the most important US serveaillcne revealaiton since the Pentagon Papers. As mentioned in my Snowden book review, understanding hard truths, as challenging as they can be make this a must read.


University of Utah | Edward Snowden and the Secrets of the National Security State
PBS NewsHour | Glenn Greenwald on ‘limitless’ ambitions of NSA
The John Adams Institute | Glenn Greenwald: No Place to Hide
Rabble.ca | Glenn Greenwald
Democracy Now! | NSA Bugging Tech Hardware, Economic Espionage & Spying on UN
WGBH | Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky discuss Edward Snowden and the NSA