A Review Of Glenn Greenwald's Book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, The NSA, And The U.S. Surveillance State

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No Place to Hide opens to Glenn Greenwald describing what led him to “become increasingly alarmed by the radical and extremist theories of power the US government had adopted in the wake of 9/11,” and start writing about these issues in 2005 (1). He stresses the importance with which Americans have viewed the right to privacy goes back to colonial times. Protection against warrantless search and seizure is in our much valued Constitution. He cites many past scandals involving the public discovering that its government is excessively surveilling its own citizens.

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Greenwald explains that mass surveillance systems are a tool that oppresses people merely by existing. When people think they are being watched, their behavior changes drastically. Without strong oversight, these systems are likely to be abused. With the currently wide use of the internet in our daily lives, that is a great deal of personal information that governments could obtain if they so desired.

In April of 2013, Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker and friend, contacted Greenwald about a big story.

The source urged them to come to Hong Cong to meet him. The source’s goal was to “spark a worldwide debate about privacy, Internet freedom, and the dangers of state surveillance,” and, surprisingly, he wanted to identify himself as the leaker (36-37). Greenwald installed encryption programs onto his computer, and the source sent him a sample of the classified NSA documents he intended to leak. These contained information about a program which directly collected data from the servers of large service providers such as Google.

This was enough to convince Greenwald to go to Hong Cong immediately. On the plane, Poitras gave Greenwald the complete set of documents.to view on his air gapped computer. These documents proved the existence of a US surveillance system working with other governments to collect as much data on private communication as possible. Not only suspected terrorists, but also vocal Muslims, large companies, government officials, and members of groups loudly opposing certain government actions, and any civilian communicating with any of the previously mentioned groups are spied on. These actions are largely based on a broad interpretation of the Patriot Act, but clearly not just terrorists are targeted.

Upon meeting Edward Snowden, the leaker, Greenwald and Poitras were surprised by how young Snowden was. After interviewing Snowden on camera, Greenwald immediately started writing articles on the documents. After some minor trouble with government officials giving the newspaper a hard time, his articles began to be published in The Guardian. Greenwald stresses that Snowden is a well-adjusted, socially connected, talented technical expert. Greenwald knew people would try to discredit Snowden by attacking him personally. Leaking these documents was risky for Snowden and the reporters. The Obama administration is known to be very tough on whistleblowers and has even attempted to criminalize journalism when it hurts their image. Many large media outlets err heavily on the side of the American government when reporting and listen to government officials when they are asked not to run a story. When other reporters discovered the location of Snowden’s hotel, two lawyers took him into hiding.

Next, Greenwald thoroughly details the relevant documents and their significance. Then the fourth chapter, entitled The Harm of Surveillance, convincingly explains why the US surveillance system should be greatly diminished in its power. This is the strongest part of the book because it explains why the average person should care about the invasion of privacy from the government when they will not likely be persecuted or prosecuted as a result of the surveillance. He argues, the measure of an oppressive government is how it treats its dissidents. The final chapter is about the duty of journalists to question the government’s actions in order to check its power and inform its citizens. This was the weakest part of the book because he focuses a bit too much on himself. He vehemently explains why the majority of journalists are a disgrace to the profession by unquestioningly agreeing with the government. This displays an off-putting ‘me verses the world’ attitude which may do more harm than good to his cause. Overall, No Place to Hide is a very enlightening and persuasive book.