Book description
The NSA is the largest, most secretive and most powerful intelligence
agency in the world. With a staff of 38,000 people, it dwarfs the CIA in
budget, manpower and influence. Recent headlines have linked it to
economic espionage throughout Europe and to the ongoing hunt for the
terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. James Bamford first penetrated the
wall of silence surrounding the NSA in 1982, with the much-talked-about
US bestseller THE PUZZLE PALACE. In BODY OF SECRETS he offers shocking
new details about the inner workings of the agency, gathered through
unique access to thousands of internal documents and interviews with
current and former officials. Unveiling extremely sensitive information
for the first time, Bamford exposes the role the NSA played in numerous
Soviet bloc Cold War conflicts and discusses its undercover involvement
in the Vietnam War. His investigation into the NSA's technological
advances during the last 15 years brings to light a network of global
surveillance ranging from on-line listening posts to sophisticated
intelligence-gathering satellites. In a hard-hitting conclusion, he
warns the NSA is a double-edged sword: while its worldwide eavesdropping
activities offer the potential for tracking down terrorists and
uncovering nuclear weapons deals, it also has the capacity to listen in
on global personal communications. James Bamford is the author of
The Puzzle Palace
, a bestseller in the US when it was first published, and now regarded
as a classic. Formerly Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's
World News Tonight
with Peter Jennings, he has written investigative cover stories for
The New York Times Magazine
, The Washington Post Magazine
and The Los Angeles Time Magazine
, and won the National Magazine Award in 2006 for his piece 'The Man Who
Sold The War', published in Rolling Stone
.
