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The Shadow Factory
brothke writes "The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America is the third of James Bamford's trilogy. Bamford started this with The Puzzle Palace in 1982 and Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency in 2001. The Shadow Factory is likely the last book Bamford will find the NSA cooperative to, given his often harsh treatment of the agency and its directors. It is also doubtful that former NSA Director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden will grant Bamford additional dinner invitations, given his portrayal of Hayden as a weakling who could not stand up to Dick Cheney and other in the Bush administration." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.
The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America
author
James Bamford
pages
416
publisher
Doubleday
rating
When sticking to facts: 9. When digressing: 2
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
0385521324
summary
Good overview of the NSA post-9/11, but some of the author's biases get in the way
The book can be summed up with two basic themes: The top management of the NSA and CIA has not made the fundamental changes needed post 9/11, as the politicking and inter-agency squabbles are seemingly alive and well. Bamford's other premise continues to be his contempt towards Israel.
Often bands produce abysmal releases in order to fulfill contractual requirements. In some ways, The Shadow Factory is reminiscent of that; at almost half the size of Body of Secrets, and 2/3 the size of The Puzzle Palace. When the book sticks to the facts and avoids conspiracy theories, it is a fascinating read.
If nothing else, Bamford knows how to turn often mundane aspects of wiretapping and supercomputers into a gripping read. Divided into five interwoven sections, the book starts out with a fascinating account of how two of the 9/11 hijackers lived the American dream, all the while planning their devious acts. Had there been some semblance of interagency cooperation and shared databases, Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi would have been identified in seconds.
Not only that, in the book, Bamford writes that many of the 9/11 terrorists set-up shop within miles of the NSA headquarters in Maryland, communicated with their counterparts in the Middle East, at the same time the NSA was searching the world over for them. Bamford makes the NSA seem like the keystone cops searching for these terrorists, while they were literally a par 5 away.
A number of the chapters details the Bush administration forays into its illegal wiretapping adventures and how Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card manipulated a sick and barely lucid Attorney General John Ashcroft into signing on to the program.
It has long been known that Bamford has no love lost for Israel. His previous books have incorrectly written of the details around Israel's attack of the Liberty, a US Navy technical research ship, which was sailing in the Mediterranean Sea during the Six-Day War.
The book details how Israeli high-tech data mining and surveillance companies such as Comverse, Verint, NICE and more have become indispensable to the US intelligence community. Bamford asserts that the vast majority of surveillance of telephone transmissions are done via technology from Israeli companies. He then makes the jump that the American intelligence community is placing itself as risk and that the Israeli companies will access this same information.
Such conspiracy theories are tired and old. For the longest time, there were claims that every Check Point FireWall-1 had a backdoor which the Mosad could tap into. Some years ago, the NSA even sent out a memo denying that fact, as it was getting in the way of firewall deployments at the agency.
As to Bamford's assertion of Israeli control of American intelligence, it makes great fodder for the conspiracy theory community, but lacks any sort of real evidence. What Bamford does is show that many of the founders of these companies are graduates of programs from the Israeli military, served in the same intelligence corps unit and therefore, guilty by some sort of association.
Irrespective of Bamford's deep hostility towards Israel, there is not the slightest indication that the American intelligence community was forced to purchase these Israeli products. They purchased these due to their superior capabilities produced by one of its closest allies. What Bamford fails to mention, is that Israeli and US intelligence groups have a long history of mutual cooperation. Much of the US success in its war against terror and monitoring of Iran are only due to help from Israel.
If the Shadow Factory is meant to be a critique of the NSA, then Bamford's unsubstantiated allegations about Israel and the Mosad show the agency to be a bastion of utter incompetency. Irrespective of problems with management at the NSA, it is utterly incredulous that the Mosad could single-handedly undermine the entire US intelligence effort, filling it with back doors and secret agents.
Bamford seems to be confused on his approach to the NSA. On one side, the NSA are the smartest guys in the room, successfully, surreptitiously and often illegally monitoring nearly every telephone call on the planet. They push supercomputers to the envelope and optimize ever CPU cycle. Yet simultaneously, these smart guys are simply pawns of a small group of Israeli intelligence agents who have managed to develop and get their software on various NSA projects.
In his review of the book in the New York Times, Christopher Dickey sums it up best when he writes of Bamford's habit of such conspiracy theories that "it's a fair bet that Bamford will find a way to work the bloodbath at the Taj Mahal hotel into the long NSA narrative that he began with "The Puzzle Palace" in 1982, followed up with "Body of Secrets" in 2001, and may well continue with paperback updates and further sequels after the present book. These are the kinds of details, or coincidences, that Bamford loves. In "The Shadow Factory" he piles one on top of another — events, addresses, room numbers — in a slapped-together text that often blends facts with speculation to evoke a pervasive atmosphere of conspiracy".
When Bamford is able to stick to the facts, which is about 2/3 of the book, he paints a frightening picture of the threats that the US is facing. Equally frightening was the response of the Bush administrations to the threats and attacks, which in some cases turned mince meat out of the Constitution. Bamford writes of Dick Cheney's attempt to give the President significant more control, while ignoring the need for separation of powers. There are many other such instances in the book. Yet when Bamford takes off his hat of reason and attempts to connect invisible dots, Christopher Dickey's observation should be kept in mind.
Seemingly on the brink of failure, the events of 9/11 recycled the NSA. For the astute reader who is able to discern between fact and fiction, The Shadow Factory is a fascinating read into an agency that still exists in the shadows. With a budget larger than the GDP of some countries, and a workforce that spans the globe, the NSA has long existed and thrived in the shadows that Bamford often describes so well.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Often bands produce abysmal releases in order to fulfill contractual requirements. In some ways, The Shadow Factory is reminiscent of that; at almost half the size of Body of Secrets, and 2/3 the size of The Puzzle Palace. When the book sticks to the facts and avoids conspiracy theories, it is a fascinating read.
If nothing else, Bamford knows how to turn often mundane aspects of wiretapping and supercomputers into a gripping read. Divided into five interwoven sections, the book starts out with a fascinating account of how two of the 9/11 hijackers lived the American dream, all the while planning their devious acts. Had there been some semblance of interagency cooperation and shared databases, Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi would have been identified in seconds.
Not only that, in the book, Bamford writes that many of the 9/11 terrorists set-up shop within miles of the NSA headquarters in Maryland, communicated with their counterparts in the Middle East, at the same time the NSA was searching the world over for them. Bamford makes the NSA seem like the keystone cops searching for these terrorists, while they were literally a par 5 away.
A number of the chapters details the Bush administration forays into its illegal wiretapping adventures and how Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card manipulated a sick and barely lucid Attorney General John Ashcroft into signing on to the program.
It has long been known that Bamford has no love lost for Israel. His previous books have incorrectly written of the details around Israel's attack of the Liberty, a US Navy technical research ship, which was sailing in the Mediterranean Sea during the Six-Day War.
The book details how Israeli high-tech data mining and surveillance companies such as Comverse, Verint, NICE and more have become indispensable to the US intelligence community. Bamford asserts that the vast majority of surveillance of telephone transmissions are done via technology from Israeli companies. He then makes the jump that the American intelligence community is placing itself as risk and that the Israeli companies will access this same information.
Such conspiracy theories are tired and old. For the longest time, there were claims that every Check Point FireWall-1 had a backdoor which the Mosad could tap into. Some years ago, the NSA even sent out a memo denying that fact, as it was getting in the way of firewall deployments at the agency.
As to Bamford's assertion of Israeli control of American intelligence, it makes great fodder for the conspiracy theory community, but lacks any sort of real evidence. What Bamford does is show that many of the founders of these companies are graduates of programs from the Israeli military, served in the same intelligence corps unit and therefore, guilty by some sort of association.
Irrespective of Bamford's deep hostility towards Israel, there is not the slightest indication that the American intelligence community was forced to purchase these Israeli products. They purchased these due to their superior capabilities produced by one of its closest allies. What Bamford fails to mention, is that Israeli and US intelligence groups have a long history of mutual cooperation. Much of the US success in its war against terror and monitoring of Iran are only due to help from Israel.
If the Shadow Factory is meant to be a critique of the NSA, then Bamford's unsubstantiated allegations about Israel and the Mosad show the agency to be a bastion of utter incompetency. Irrespective of problems with management at the NSA, it is utterly incredulous that the Mosad could single-handedly undermine the entire US intelligence effort, filling it with back doors and secret agents.
Bamford seems to be confused on his approach to the NSA. On one side, the NSA are the smartest guys in the room, successfully, surreptitiously and often illegally monitoring nearly every telephone call on the planet. They push supercomputers to the envelope and optimize ever CPU cycle. Yet simultaneously, these smart guys are simply pawns of a small group of Israeli intelligence agents who have managed to develop and get their software on various NSA projects.
In his review of the book in the New York Times, Christopher Dickey sums it up best when he writes of Bamford's habit of such conspiracy theories that "it's a fair bet that Bamford will find a way to work the bloodbath at the Taj Mahal hotel into the long NSA narrative that he began with "The Puzzle Palace" in 1982, followed up with "Body of Secrets" in 2001, and may well continue with paperback updates and further sequels after the present book. These are the kinds of details, or coincidences, that Bamford loves. In "The Shadow Factory" he piles one on top of another — events, addresses, room numbers — in a slapped-together text that often blends facts with speculation to evoke a pervasive atmosphere of conspiracy".
When Bamford is able to stick to the facts, which is about 2/3 of the book, he paints a frightening picture of the threats that the US is facing. Equally frightening was the response of the Bush administrations to the threats and attacks, which in some cases turned mince meat out of the Constitution. Bamford writes of Dick Cheney's attempt to give the President significant more control, while ignoring the need for separation of powers. There are many other such instances in the book. Yet when Bamford takes off his hat of reason and attempts to connect invisible dots, Christopher Dickey's observation should be kept in mind.
Seemingly on the brink of failure, the events of 9/11 recycled the NSA. For the astute reader who is able to discern between fact and fiction, The Shadow Factory is a fascinating read into an agency that still exists in the shadows. With a budget larger than the GDP of some countries, and a workforce that spans the globe, the NSA has long existed and thrived in the shadows that Bamford often describes so well.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
A review that tries to debunk the conspiracy theories set out in the book... pretty lame.
I mean, really, on either side of the aisle. WE have no idea what the NSA is doing and never will.
This is my sig.
Given how interesting tech topics get thread jacked into political food fights around here wouldn't it be a refreshing change of pace if this devolved into a technology discussion about NSA gadgets? As I have nothing on that right now I'm just complaining.
TODO: [insert informed inflammatory political troll]
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
...in the Fiction/Fantasy/Paranoia aisle.
You don't stand up to your bosses and keep your job. Everyone's got a boss.
There was a very interesting interview with Bamford a few weeks ago.
better to wallow in conspiracy theories, since that's what the audience wants
why try to tell the truth when you can sell an audience its quasireligious, foundational psychosis: western democratic governments are actually mind control agencies out to get you?
but don't worry about my tone of voice: i'm obviously "one of them" (deluded sheeple or neocon stormtrooping fascist, take your cartoonish pick)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Given the books primary offense is criticizing Israel, it might make sense to mention the cultural/religious affiliation of the reviewer.(google is (in this case) your friend)
May be a bit bias, Israel or Israeli mentioned 14 times, in a short review, all in a defensive manner.
The story of the USS Liberty is still open, NSA has yet to release all the intercept tapes from the EC-121 in the area or documents related to communications intercepts from other stations.
Not a fair review.
Bamford's account on the USS Liberty murders was right on the money. I'm a veteran of the "Green NSA", the Army Security Agency. I was on duty on that fateful day in 1967. I was at the east African station he mentioned. I'm glad he debunked the "mistaken identity" lies about the murderous attack on our sailors. He was also right about our government siding with the Israelis time and time again when we tried to get justice for our heros. They even called off rescue efforts when they found the attackers were Israeli.
After having to hold in my anger and hurt for 30 years, it was wonderful to find someone on our side. Thank you Mr Bamford.
Don't get me wrong, I do believe in standing with Israel, but they got to return the favor. Friendships should be a two way street. Israel, stand up and take responsibility for your actions against the USS Liberty. We do believe in forgiveness. Trust us.
photosMy Photostream
It has long been known that Bamford has no love lost for Israel. His previous books have incorrectly written of the details around Israel's attack of the Liberty, a US Navy technical research ship, which was sailing in the Mediterranean Sea during the Six-Day War.
Could an example his incorrect details be supplied?
And what about it? An Israeli jet fired upon a ship flying an American flag and killed a bunch of Americans. There's no excuse.
I just don't get American foreign affairs, I guess.
For the longest time, there were claims that every Check Point FireWall-1 had a backdoor which the Mosad could tap into. Some years ago, the NSA even sent out a memo denying that fact, as it was getting in the way of firewall deployments at the agency.
They sent out a memo? Well consider that one debunked.
If you're interested in this type of book, you might want to check out the Limits of Power by Andrew Bacevich. Bacevich discusses the immense cost of the entire national security apparatus, and how most of the money spent on it goes to increasing the power and prestige of the individual services (NSA, CIA, FBI) and very little goes to actually protecting the American people.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
His defense of Israel is so vigorous I find myself wondering - is the reviewer himself on the Mossad's payroll? Was he sent here to cultivate sympathy for Israel amongst the world's intellectual elite (slashdot)?
I don't know about Masad backdoors into Checkpoint firewalls, but the RAIN protocol http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=00910866 is the method used to build Checkpoint HA clusters. Another intersting point is that Narus, a company founded by an Israeli, created technology that has been used to gather intelligence on the backbones of some of the largest ISP's in the world. The AT&T traffic sniffing snafu of a few years ago was accomplished using Narus devices.
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
I haven't read the book yet, but I highly recommend the PBS NOVA documentary based on it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/
The reviewer clearly states his bias though:
"Good overview of the NSA post-9/11, but some of the author's biases get in the way"
Unless of course 'author' does not refer to the author of the review ;)
MP3 Search Engine
"His previous books have incorrectly written of the details around Israel's attack of the Liberty, a US Navy technical research ship, which was sailing in the Mediterranean Sea during the Six-Day War."
I have not read the book, but I'm curious. What was incorrectly written? Why was it incorrect?
You accuse the author of making unsubstantiated claims, yet you've done the exact same thing here. I understand this is a book review, but if you're going to make such broad statements, at least back them up with a link containing evidence to support what you say.
Labelling things that he says as "conspiracy theory" does not debunk anything at all . That is a sloppy way of trying to refute what he says (which we don't really know, since you don't actually quote anything he says, preferring to give your interpretation of it).
The evidence you do cite is equally poor, however. The NSA sent out a memo refuting the claims of a backdoor in a firewall? So what? Bush claimed the US doesn't do torture, guess how accurate that claim was. And so what if the US and Israel have a long history of mutual co-operation. Are you naive enough to think that Israel wouldn't exploit that to achieve its own ends, if necessary? Why shouldn't they?
Judging by some of your statements, you come across as having admiration for the work that the US and Israel have done together, so it seems clear that you have a bias towards Israel. Why should we not, then, discount anything you say here?
This is, in my view, a poorly written, biased and unsubstantiated review, guilty of the same things that the reviewer accuses the book of.
An excellent overview of the techniques and methods of mass data mining.
The question is whether all that stuff they collected (and the galaxy of contractors is REALLY well explained) can count as exculpatory evidence in big cases. (IE if you're accused of being a terrorist, then Booz Allen Hamilton ought to cough everything up.)
Which is why i loaned my copy to rnc8.org - the RNC Welcoming Committee "furtherance of terrorism" defendants!
--hongpong.com
There's a good list at the end of the wikipedia article on "proven" conspiracies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
Governments are made of people. who are capable of brilliant maneuvers and colossal fuckups. If you read about Operation AJAX, you'll discover that fewer than 100 people overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government in the 50s. This was due to their access to american political influence and funding from the CIA. Similarly, you can read "The Dark Side" by Jane Mayer, and learn how a handful of dogmatic lawyers, with no qualifying experience in Islamic terrorism, international law, or even basic politics were able to dictate our policies on torture for 7 years. The thing with concentrations of power, outside of public view, is that it will lead to conspiracy, unless you believe that people don't act in their own interest. They absolutely do, and those in power are no different.
In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the FBI denied that they were targeting civil rights political leaders for assassination, but the revelation provided by the COINTELPRO documents provided proof that they not only did that, but actively infiltrated and subverted any organization thought to pose a threat to the existing "social order" of the United States. The CIA are the world leaders in terrorist planning, conducting operations from Latin America, to Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Lots of secret organizations do lots of bad things, and those are just the "known" groups in the United States. Consider countries like China and Russia and the Middle East, and I'm sure you can give yourself a nightmare without much imagination.
To paraphrase Baudelaire, the greatest trick the conspirators have ever pulled is convincing the public that they don't exist.
"...how Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card manipulated a sick and barely lucid Attorney General John Ashcroft into signing on to the program."
Wasn't Ashcroft already signed on to the program? My understanding was that the sideshow in the hospital was just to continue the authorization for the program. Also, I'm pretty sure he refused to sign.
Would you be surprised at this point? Israel has nukes and a secret chemical and biological weapons program. Israel has more nukes than France and are 1/10th the size in population. That is the only thing holding back the Arab states from running them over with their combined forces in this day and age. Israel is increasingly an untenable state, for the fact that when anyone who does not like them manages to get nukes (i.e. Iran) a single 100kt nuke would be enough to cripple the country and 10-20 to make the entire country glow like the surface of the sun. Israel is too small to have nukes, they are undeclared and have unknown capabilities in range and destructive power. I am more scared of hard right wingers in Israel coming to power than Iran at this point as the constant disregard for human life in Palestine shows that Israel would do anything to survive and that could mean doing crazy shit like targeting Europe or the United States if we attempt to force a 2-state solution.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I've read both previous books and will read this one, too. I see this story as a spoiler zone, and I haven't read the entire review, but I want to thank /. for putting up a review on it in the first place. Bamford's looks at the secret world of our intelligence agencies are nothing short of thorough and well-researched.
Everyone should read Bamford before ever uttering the letters "NSA" in public. Whenever someone starts ranting about the NSA I ask them if they've ever read the Puzzle Palace or Body of Secrets. If they answer, "No", then I know their opinion can safely be discounted.
This agency is one Americans know very little about - with good reason most of the time - and oversight of it is incredibly important and sorely lacking.
As a reasonable, skeptical individual, I would personally be completely shocked to find out that absolutely none of this data was being passed on to Israeli security forces. At the very least, I would expect that Israeli intelligence has in some fashion managed to get access to information it needs through at least one of these companies. It would beggar belief that an organisation like Mossad had not availed itself of such an opportunity.
Frankly, in the times we live in, I would expect that all of these companies along with every other subcontractor, has already creamed off useful statistics and data and sold them to banks, credit agencies and marketers. This in fact would bother me more than data being passed to competent intelligence outfits, would would at least misuse it in a security conscious way.
This data is in some fashion being passed on to the Israeli security forces. It is in no way a conspiracy theory to suggest this, and any reasonable person would come to the same conclusion. Whether the American intelligence community is placing itself at risk by outsourcing like this is another matter.
Frankly, from the tone of the book, the American intelligence community appears to be a contradiction in terms.
May the Maths Be with you!
For a less political and more informative view of the NSA, read Chatter by Patrick Radden Keefe.
"After the USSR went down, the NSA downsized"
No they didn't, security efforts were redeployed in industrial espionage, with the help of our own GCHQ
davecb5620@gmail.com
"When Bamford is able to stick to the facts, which is about 2/3 of the book"
Why are you so certain of the facts? Do you have firsthand information? If so, then why don't you write a book?
A quick perusal if the reviewers website shows his pro Israel bias quite clearly, he "Ran for Israel" in a marathon for example.
There seem to be a strangely common link with all the persons who aim at disproving various conspiracy theories :
They think C-T proponents are out to get Israel (the political country, not the Qabballah meaning) !!! While it has been proven countless times that this view is flawed to the bones.
For the original review, I think the author misses the point in his crusade against C-T : you can be the brightest when it comes to planting surveillance devices throughout the world (NSA's job description) while at the same time being the dumbest when it comes to identifying cleverly organized spies (Mossad's core reputation) !!