Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State

Abstract

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State, by Glenn Greenwald was published in 2014 by Hamish Hamilton, London. It is the stunning account of how the author was able to make the global surveillance disclosures and his dramatic interaction with a person that helped him blew the whistle. Chapter one begins with the story of the writer receiving a cryptic email from an unknown person who insisted on communication through encrypted channels only. This person later turned out to be the 29 year old American computer professional, Edward Joseph "Ed" Snowden, who suddenly sprang to world attention in June 2013 through his disclosure on public media of thousands of classified documents revealing numerous global surveillance programmes, many of them run by United States‘ National Security Agency (NSA). Four of the five chapters in this book deal directly with the details of the author‘s communication and direct contact with Snowden. He describes in detail his meetings in Hong Kong with Snowden and Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker.