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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.
There was a very interesting interview with Bamford a few weeks ago.
That's the problem with all conspiracy theories - you have to simultaneously portray the conspirators as both genius masterminds and utterly incompetent idiots. Conspiracy theorists are incapable of recognizing their own cognitive dissonance from embracing both viewpoints.
I always find it amusing that the same brilliant government overlords who are supposedly micromanaging every detail of our lives can't seem to even get the mail delivered reliably, or a single branch of the government running efficiently, or even bother to cover up the most blatant evidence of their supposed plots.
I always find it amusing that the same brilliant government overlords who are supposedly micromanaging every detail of our lives can't seem to even get the mail delivered reliably, or a single branch of the government running efficiently, or even bother to cover up the most blatant evidence of their supposed plots.
They just do that to make you think they are incompetent. Otherwise we'd figure out the truth about 9/11 (Israeli cruise missiles), the JFK assassination (Vice President Johnson) and TWA Flight 800 (shot down by the US Navy).
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
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Actually, we know some of what the NSA is doing, because some of it is not SECRET or TOP SECRET. For example, the NSA publishes recommendations for computer security, and together with NIST certifies products that comply with those recommendations. The NSA also evaluates cryptographic algorithms and hardware, and CPU enhancements that may have cryptographic uses (for example, when HP was working on a CPU instruction set that included a bitwise permutation operation, some NSA agents showed up). Some of the evaluation techniques are secret, but the fact that the NSA is doing this is well known.
Palm trees and 8
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)?
The reviewer seems to have a "make Israel look good" agenda. I've read the book, and didn't get the impression that it was anti-Israel. In the book, Israel is a minor side issue.
NSA did have serious problems, the most serious being irrelevancy. NSA was set up to deal with the USSR, a large, slow-moving opponent. NSA's expertise classically was in radio interception and cryptanalysis, with the main target being the USSR's military and intelligence operations. After the USSR went down, the NSA downsized. Running a vast effort to obtain basic information about what the Soviet Union was doing was no longer necessary. You could go to Murmansk and look at the nuclear submarines.
NSA's approach wasn't that helpful in dealing with small-scale non-state actors, which was the problem after 9/11. There were frantic efforts to repurpose NSA, which are well-covered in the book. These efforts were driven by the Cheney crowd, who were more concerned about accumulating power than actually dealing with real terrorists. That's well-covered too.
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.
Hah! Show's what you know. JFK was assassinated by a cruise missile being remotely piloted by Oswald on board TWA Flight 800 piloted by Johnson while on the way to Israel to pick up the Ark of the Covenant from the Illuminati. Don't you see?! The pieces all fit!
May the Maths Be with you!