![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > Espionage & secret services
The Gestapo was the most feared instrument of political terror in the Third Reich, brutally hunting down and destroying anyone it regarded as an enemy of the Nazi regime: socialists, Communists, Jews, homosexuals, and anyone else deemed to be an 'anti-social element'. Its prisons soon became infamous - many of those who disappeared into them were never seen again - and it has been remembered ever since as the sinister epitome of Nazi terror and persecution. But how accurate is it to view the Gestapo as an all-pervasive, all-powerful, all-knowing instrument of terror? How much did it depend upon the cooperation and help of ordinary Germans? And did its networks extend further into the everyday life of German society than most Germans after 1945 ever wanted to admit? Answering all these questions and more, this book uses the very latest research to tell the true story behind this secretive and fearsome institution. Tracing the history of the organization from its origins in the Weimar Republic, through the crimes of the Nazi period, to the fate of former Gestapo officers after World War II, Carsten Dams and Michael Stolle investigate how the Gestapo really worked - and question many of the myths that have long surrounded it.
An unprecedented history of the CIA's secret and amazing gadgetry behind the art of espionage In this look at the CIA's most secretive operations and the devices that made them possible, Spycraft tells gripping life-and-death stories about a group of spytechs-much of it never previously revealed and with images never before seen by the public. The CIA's Office of Technical Service is the ultrasecret department that grappled with challenges such as: What does it take to build a quiet helicopter? How does one embed a listening device in a cat? What is an invisible photo used for? These amazingly inventive devices were created and employed against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions-including the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and continuing terrorist threats. Written by Robert Wallace, the former director of the Office of Technical Service, and internationally renowned intelligence historian Keith Melton, Spycraft is both a fantastic encyclopedia of gadgetry and a revealing primer on the fundamentals of high-tech espionage. "The first comprehensive look at the technical achievements of American espionage from the 1940s to the present."-Wired "Reveals more concrete information about CIA tradecraft than any book."-The Washington Times "This is a story I thought could never be told."-JAMES M. OLSON, former chief of CIA counterintelligence
Since 9/11, the needs of intelligence agencies as well as the missions they conduct have increased in number, size, and complexity. As such, government and private security agencies are recruiting staff to analyze the vast amount of data collected in these missions. This textbook offers a way of gaining the analytic skills essential to undertake intelligence work. It acquaints students and analysts with how intelligence fits into the larger research framework. It covers not only the essentials of applied research, but also the function, structure, and operational methods specifically involved in intelligence work. It looks at how analysts work with classified information in a security conscious environment as well as obtain data via covert methods. Students are left with little doubt about what intelligence is and how it is developed using scientific methods of inquiry. This revised edition of the popular text has been expanded and updated significantly.
A Question of Standing deals with recognizable events that have shaped the history of the first 75 years of the CIA. Unsparing in its accounts of dirty tricks and their consequences, it values the agency's intelligence and analysis work to offer balanced judgements that avoid both celebration and condemnation of the CIA. The mission of the CIA, derived from U-1 in World War I more than from World War II's OSS, has always been intelligence. Seventy-five years ago, in the year of its creation, the National Security Act gave the agency, uniquely in world history up to that point, a democratic mandate to pursue that mission of intelligence. It gave the CIA a special standing in the conduct of US foreign relations. That standing diminished when successive American presidents ordered the CIA to exceed its original mission. When they tasked the agency secretly to overthrow democratic governments, the United States lost its international standing, and its command of a majority in the United Nations General Assembly. Such dubious operations, even the government's embrace of assassination and torture, did not diminish the standing of the CIA in US public opinion. However, domestic interventions did. CIA spying on domestic protesters led to tighter congressional oversight from the 1970s on. The chapters in A Question of Standing offer a balanced narrative and perspective on recognizable episodes in the CIA's history. They include the Bay of Pigs invasion, the War on Terror, 9/11, the weapons of mass destruction deception, the Iran estimate of 2007, the assassination of Osama bin Laden, and Fake News. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 diminished the CIA and is construed as having been the right solution undertaken for the wrong reasons, reasons that grew out of political opportunism. The book also defends the CIA's exposure of foreign meddling in US elections.
Words of Intelligence: An Intelligence Professional's Lexicon for Domestic and Foreign Threats is intended for the intelligence and national security men and women at the federal, state, and local levels. The intelligence community has undergone massive changes since it developed after World War II. Intelligence work now involves several different processes, including the planning, collection, analysis, and production of information. It also requires extensive expertise in its terminology. And in the post-9/11 era, the intelligence community has expanded, requiring the transmission of information to state and local public administrators, health officials, and transportation planners in times of a possible domestic attack. The number of people who need to know the specialized terminology of the intelligence community continues to grow. This dictionary is an invaluable tool for those requiring a working knowledge of intelligence-related issues from both a foreign intelligence perspective and a local perspective for law enforcement officials. The number of terms, abbreviations, and acronyms has more than doubled for this new edition, and it includes a topical index and extensively cross-referenced entries. This book explains terms that relate to intelligence operations, intelligence strategies, security classifications, obscure names of intelligence boards and organizations, and methodologies used to produce intelligence analysis. Both entry-level and experienced intelligence professionals in the domestic and foreign intelligence communities find this book useful. This book is more than just a reference book; it is a book to read and enjoy, and from which to learn the art and science of intelligence analysis.
Joining the ranks of Hidden Figures and In the Garden of Beasts, the incredible true story of the greatest codebreaking duo that ever lived, an American woman and her husband who invented the modern science of cryptology together and used it to confront the evils of their time, solving puzzles that unmasked Nazi spies and helped win World War II. In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the U.S. government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the "Adam and Eve" of the NSA, Elizebeth’s story, incredibly, has never been told. In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation’s history for forty years. After World War I, Smith used her talents to catch gangsters and smugglers during Prohibition, then accepted a covert mission to discover and expose Nazi spy rings that were spreading like wildfire across South America, advancing ever closer to the United States. As World War II raged, Elizebeth fought a highly classified battle of wits against Hitler’s Reich, cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine used by German spies. Meanwhile, inside an Army vault in Washington, William worked furiously to break Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma—and eventually succeeded, at a terrible cost to his personal life. Fagone unveils America’s code-breaking history through the prism of Smith’s life, bringing into focus the unforgettable events and colorful personalities that would help shape modern intelligence. Blending the lively pace and compelling detail that are the hallmarks of Erik Larson’s bestsellers with the atmosphere and intensity of The Imitation Game, The Woman Who Smashed Codes is page-turning popular history at its finest.
Did the Trump administration have a cybersecurity strategy, or was it hell-bent on dismantling years of consensus-building on how the nation should respond to an existential threat to its digital life blood? Based on insider accounts and exclusive interviews with experts, Cyber in the Age of Trump offers a first-time chronicle and analysis of the Trump administration's approach to cybersecurity, its curious decisions and strategic choices, places where its work has earned applause, and the places where cyber pros see major signs of danger. The new administration came in with a strong faith in technology, a sense that the U.S. could better deploy its cyber weaponry to deter foes, and a willingness to continue popular Obama-era policies on collaborating with industry. But it didn't seem to have a cyber vision, or one that was applied consistently. And in the absence of such a strategic overview, the threat to the nation would only grow. Cyber in the Age of Trump is the first book to examine the impact of President Trump on the nation's greatest long-term strategic challenge and how a "disruptor presidency" has upended consensus and threatened to derail cyber policy.
This book is a compilation of CRS reports on the intelligence community. Congresss and the American publics ability to oversee and understand how intelligence dollars are spent is limited by the secrecy that surrounds the intelligence budget process. Chapter 1 is designed to shed light on the IC budgetin terms of its programs, management, and enduring issuesusing unclassified materials available in the public domain. Chapter 2 focuses on cross-cutting management issues that affect the Intelligence Communitys (ICs) ability to counter pervasive and emerging threats to the United States and balance resources both appropriately and wisely. The next chapter reports on the use of contractors within the intelligence community. Chapter 4 provides the names and appointment provisions for selected Intelligence Community (IC) senior officials. Chapter 5 summarizes dates and directives for the establishment of each of the 17 IC component organisations. IC Directive 116, Intelligence Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Evaluation System provides guidance for the IPPBE process. The IPPBE process applies to all 17 IC components as discussed in chapter 6. Chapter 7 differentiates clandestine from covert, using clandestine to signify the tactical concealment of the activity and covert operations as planned and executed to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor. The next chapter builds on the notification requirements and the different authorities of the U. S. Code need for covert action and clandestine activities. Chapter 9 posits a potential framework for congressional oversight of intelligence-related programs and activities using the existing committee structure and notification standards for the most sensitive intelligence activities: covert action and clandestine intelligence collection. Total intelligence spending is usually understood as the combination of the National Intelligence Program (NIP), which supports strategic planning and policymaking, and the Military Intelligence Program (MIP), which supports military operational and tactical levels of planning and operations as reported in chapter 10. Chapter 11 examines intelligence funding over the past several decades, with an emphasis on the period from 2007-2016.
In the early 1970s, Sir Maurice Oldfield of the British Secret Service, MI6, embarked upon a decade-long campaign to derail the political career of Charles Haughey. The English spymaster believed Haughey was a Provisional IRA godfather, therefore, a threat to Britain. Oldfield was assisted by unscrupulous British agents and by a shadowy group of conspirators inside the Irish state's security apparatus, all sharing his distrust of Haughey. Escaping scrutiny for their actions until now, Enemy of the Crown examines more than a dozen instances of their activities. Oldfield was conspiratorial by nature and lacked a moral compass. Involved in regime change plots and torture in the Middle East, in the Republic of Ireland he engaged with convicted criminals as agent provocateurs as well as the exploitation of pedophile rings in Northern Ireland. He and his spies engaged in dirty tricks as they ran vicious smear campaigns in Ireland, Britain and the US. MI6 and IRD intrigues were deployed to impede Haughey's bid to secure a position on Fianna Fail's front bench and any return to respectability. London's hateful drive against Haughey saw no let-up after Fianna Fail's triumphal return to power in 1977 which saw them win a large majority of seats in the Dail. When Haughey sought a place at Cabinet, Oldfield and his spies devised more dirty tricks to impede him. While Haughey was suspicious of MI6 interference, he had no inkling of the full extent of London's clandestine efforts to destroy him. By circulating lurid stories about him, they played a major part in trying to prevent him succeed Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in 1979. This book attempts to shed light on some of the anti-Haughey conspiracies which took place during the period of the late 1960s right through to the early 1980s.
A rallying cry to link the food justice movement to broader social justice debates The United States is a nation of foodies and food activists, many of them progressives, and yet their overwhelming concern for what they consume often hinders their engagement with social justice more broadly. Food Justice Now! charts a path from food activism to social justice activism that integrates the two. It calls on the food-focused to broaden and deepen their commitment to the struggle against structural inequalities both within and beyond the food system. In an engrossing, historically grounded, and ethnographically rich narrative, Joshua Sbicca argues that food justice is more than just a myopic focus on food, allowing scholars and activists alike to investigate the causes behind inequities and evaluate and implement political strategies to overcome them. Focusing on carceral, labor, and immigration crises, Sbicca tells the stories of three California-based food movement organizations, showing that when activists use food to confront neoliberal capitalism and institutional racism, they can creatively expand how to practice and achieve food justice. Sbicca sets his central argument in opposition to apolitical and individual solutions, discussing national food movement campaigns and the need for economically and racially just food policies-a matter of vital public concern with deep implications for building collective power across a diversity of interests.
Poland was the 'tripwire' that brought Britain into the Second World War but neither Britain, nor Poland's older ally, France, had the material means to prevent Poland being overrun. The broadcast, 'Poland is no longer alone' had a distinctly hollow ring. During the next four years the Polish Government in exile and armed forces made a significant contribution to the Allied war effort; in return the Polish Home Army received a paltry 600 tons of supplies. Poland Alone focuses on the climactic year of 1944 when the Polish Resistance attempted to gain control of Warsaw from the Germans. A bloody uprising ensued, but little help was received from the Allies. After the Warsaw Poles were massacred, the Red Army finally moved into the city and then occupied the whole country. Jonathan Walker examines whether Britain could have done more to save the Polish people and the victims of the Holocaust. While Allied political and military leaders clashed over the level of support for the Poles, SOE, RAF and Intelligence personnel fought a bitter covert war to help the Polish resistance fighters. The War ended with over five million Poles dead. Had Britain betrayed her ally?
'Set Europe ablaze.' The order came from Churchill himself. The result was the Special Operations Executive - the SOE. Established in 1941 with the aim of supplying occupied France with a steady stream of highly trained resistance agents, this clandestine second world war network grew to become a crucial part of the allied arsenal. Ingeniously engineering acts of sabotage, resistance and terror in the face of the occupying Nazis, the SOE dealt devastating and fatal blows to the German war effort - and directly contributed to the rapid and successful advance of Allied forces across France in the days and months after D-Day. At the head of the French operations stood Colonel Maurice James Buckmaster, the leader of the SOE's French Section. These are his extraordinary memoirs. A lost classic, now available for the first time after many decades, They Fought Alone offers a unique insight into the courageous triumphs and terrible fates of the SOE's agents between 1941 and 1944. This new edition includes an introduction by intelligence historian Michael Smith that deals with the recent controversy surrounding Buckmaster, restoring his reputation as one of the most important figures in the resistance to the Nazis. The best collection of military, espionage, and adventure stories ever told. The Dialogue Espionage Classics series began in 2010 with the purpose of bringing back classic out-of-print spying and espionage tales. From WWI and WWII to the Cold War, D-Day to the SOE, Bletchley Park to the Comet Line this fascinating spy history series brings you the best stories that should never be forgotten.
The definitive history of the military's decades-long investigation into mental powers and phenomena, from the author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain and international bestseller Area 51. This is a book about a team of scientists and psychics with top secret clearances. For more than forty years, the U.S. government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the Navy, Air Force, and Army-and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs, using never before seen declassified documents as well as exclusive interviews with, and unprecedented access to, more than fifty of the individuals involved. Speaking on the record, many for the first time, are former CIA and Defense Department scientists, analysts, and program managers, as well as the government psychics themselves. Who did the U.S. government hire for these top secret programs, and how do they explain their military and intelligence work? How do scientists approach such enigmatic subject matter? What interested the government in these supposed powers and does the research continue? PHENOMENA is a riveting investigation into how far governments will go in the name of national security.
"The best book about America's first modern secret service." --Washington Post Book World In the months before World War II, FDR prepared the country for conflict with Germany and Japan by reshuffling various government agencies to create the Office of Strategic Services--America's first intelligence agency and the direct precursor to the CIA. When he charged William ("Wild Bill") Donovan, a successful Wall Street lawyer and Wilkie Republican, to head up the office, the stage was set for some of the most fantastic and fascinating operations the U.S. government has ever conducted. Author Richard Harris Smith, himself an ex-CIA hand, documents the controversial agency from its conception as a spin-off of the Office of the Coordinator for Information to its demise under Harry Truman and reconfiguration as the CIA. During his tenure, Donovan oversaw a chaotic cast of some ten thousand agents drawn from the most conservative financial scions to the country's most idealistic New Deal true believers. Together they usurped the roles of government agencies both foreign and domestic, concocted unbelievably complicated conspiracies, and fought the good fight against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. For example, when OSS operatives stole vital military codebooks from the Japanese embassy in Portugal, the operation was considered a success. But the success turned into a flop as the Japanese discovered what had happened, and hastily changed a code that had already been decrypted by the U.S. Navy. Colorful personalities and truly priceless anecdotes abound in what may be called the most authoritative work on the subject.
Armies of Arabia is the first comprehensive analysis of the Gulf monarchies' armed forces, including their political, social, and economic characteristics, foreign relations, and battleground performance. The Arabian Peninsula is among the most strategically and economically important areas in the world, but its militaries remain terra incognita. In Armies of Arabia - the first book to comprehensively analyze the Gulf monarchies' armed forces - Zoltan Barany explains their notorious ineffectiveness with a combination of political-structural and sociocultural factors. Drawing on over 150 interviews and meticulous multidisciplinary research, Barany paints a fascinating portrait of Arabia's armies from Ibn Saud's Ikhwan to the present. He explores the methods ruling families employ to ensure their armies' loyalty, examines the backgrounds and career trajectories of soldiers and officers, and explains the monarchies' reliance on mercenaries and the enduring importance of tribal networks. Even though no other world region spends more on security, Arabia's armies remain ineffective because of an absence of meritocracy, the domination of personal connections over institutional norms, insipid leadership, a casual work ethic, and training that lacks intensity, frequency, and up-to-date scenarios. Massive weapons acquisitions are primarily pay-offs to the US for protecting them and have resulted in bloated and inappropriate arsenals and large-scale corruption. Barany explains why the Gulf Cooperation Council has been a squandered opportunity and examines the kingdoms' military relationships with the Arab world and beyond. The performance of the Saudi-led coalition's disastrous war in Yemen starkly illustrates the Gulf armies' humiliating combat record. The book concludes with thoughts on waste (of human potential, resources, institutions) as a dominant theme of Gulf military affairs, considers likely changes in response to long-term weakening demand for oil, and suggests ways in which the armies' effectiveness could be raised. Chock-full of insights and stories from the field and written with a general audience in mind, Armies of Arabia will be essential reading for anyone interested in military affairs and Middle Eastern politics, society, and international relations.
The astonishing, gripping and long-awaited inside story of an ordinary man who became an extraordinary spy. After years of living in semi-isolation, David Rupert speaks for the first time about how a trucker from New York ended up being recruited to the FBI and MI5 at one of the most crucial moments in British political history. Including shock revelations about Rupert's discoveries working within the Real IRA - such as sending plastic explosives and detonators, hidden inside toys, to a primary school in Donegal. Author Sean O'Driscoll tells the incredible story of David, 'The Big Yank', a 6ft7 American tourist who found himself at the centre of a chilling campaign of terror that targeted civilians, the forces and Prime Minister Tony Blair. Countless lives have been saved by David Rupert's decision to risk his neck working for years within one of the most brutal and ruthless terrorist organisations in the world - an organisation whose language of violence left women and children amongst the dead in the Omagh atrocity. An unprecedented bombing campaign was planned to destroy any hopes of a peace agreement. In a trial that rested entirely on the evidence of the 'Big Yank', those plans for ongoing bloodshed and an end to the Good Friday Agreement were brought to a halt.
Cecile Fabre draws back the curtain on the ethics of espionage and counterintelligence. Espionage and counter-intelligence activities, both real and imagined, weave a complex and alluring story. Yet there is hardly any serious philosophical work on the subject. Cecile Fabre presents a systematic account of the ethics of espionage and counterintelligence. She argues that such operations, in the context of war and foreign policy, are morally justified as a means, but only as a means, to protect oneself and third parties from ongoing violations of fundamental rights. In doing so, she addresses a range of ethical questions: are intelligence officers morally permitted to bribe, deceive, blackmail, and manipulate as a way to uncover state secrets? Is cyberespionage morally permissible? Are governments morally permitted to resort to the mass surveillance of their and foreign populations as a means to unearth possible threats against national security? Can treason ever be morally permissible? Can it ever be legitimate to resort to economic espionage in the name of national security? The book offers answers to those questions through a blend of philosophical arguments and historical examples.
This book questions the conventional wisdom about one of the most controversial episodes in the Cold War, and tells the story of the CIA's backing of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. For nearly two decades during the early Cold War, the CIA secretly sponsored some of the world's most feted writers, philosophers, and scientists as part of a campaign to prevent Communism from regaining a foothold in Western Europe and from spreading to Asia. By backing the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA subsidized dozens of prominent magazines, global congresses, annual seminars, and artistic festivals. When this operation (QKOPERA) became public in 1967, it ignited one of the most damaging scandals in CIA history. Ever since then, many accounts have argued that the CIA manipulated a generation of intellectuals into lending their names to pro-American, anti-Communist ideas. Others have suggested a more nuanced picture of the relationship between the Congress and the CIA, with intellectuals sometimes resisting the CIA's bidding. Very few accounts, however, have examined the man who held the Congress together: Michael Josselson, the Congress's indispensable manager-and, secretly, a long time CIA agent. This book fills that gap. Using a wealth of archival research and interviews with many of the figures associated with the Congress, this book sheds new light on how the Congress came into existence and functioned, both as a magnet for prominent intellectuals and as a CIA operation. This book will be of much interest to students of the CIA, Cold War History, intelligence studies, US foreign policy and International Relations in general.
Of the 2.3 million National Servicemen conscripted during the Cold War, 4,200 attended the secret Joint Services School for Linguists, tasked with supplying much-needed Russian speakers to the three services. The majority were in RAF uniform, as the Warsaw Pact saw air forces become the greatest danger to the West. After training, they were sent to the front lines in Germany and elsewhere to snoop on Russian aircraft in real time. Posted to RAF Gatow in Berlin, ideally placed for signals interception, Douglas Boyd came to know Hitler's devastated former capital, divided as it was into Soviet, French, US and British sectors. Pulling no punches, he describes the SIGINT work, his subsequent arrest by armed Soviet soldiers one night on the border, and how he was locked up without trial in solitary confinement in a Stasi prison. The Solitary Spy is a unique account of the terrifying experience of incarceration and interrogation in an East German political prison, from which Boyd eventually escaped one step ahead of the KGB.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Liam Neeson. It was the biggest mystery of American history. A shadowy source deep within Washington had leaked crucial information to two journalists, helping them uncover the historical Watergate Scandal of 1972. But who was this elusive source and what were his motivations? Thirty-three years later, the FBI's Mark Felt would finally identify himself as Deep Throat, the Watergate Whistleblower. This is his story. Mark Felt learnt spy craft tracking Nazi and Soviet spies, tackled mobsters in Kansas City and took down the FBI's most wanted list, rising through the ranks under J Edgar Hoover to one of the FBI's top positions. A life spent watching pivotal moments of history unfold, Mark Felt was the eyes and ears of the intelligence service. Drawing on his memoirs, FBI memos, secret files and conversations with his family and friends, this is the account of a G-Man's life and his struggle for honour in Washington. This new edition is updated with the help of Mark's lawyer, John O'Connor, drawing on new developments and why now, the role of Deep Throat, is even more important than ever.
Since its creation in 1947, the CIA has been at the heart of America's security apparatus. It has also been the subject of major national and international controversies, and been subject to accusations of poor performance and failure, most notably over the 9/11 attacks and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Written by intelligence scholars and experts, this book offers the reader a lively and authoritative survey of the CIA past and present. The history of the agency is presented through the prism of its declassified documents, with each being supplemented by insightful contextual analysis. The book chronicles the evolution of the CIA, its remarkable successes, clandestine operations, and its ongoing struggle to maintain American security in an age of proliferating threats.
Drawing on extensive interviews and archival research, this biography uncovers the motivations and ideals that informed Smiley's commitment to covert action and intelligence during the Second World War and early part of the Cold War, often among tribally based societies.
Andrew W. Neal argues that while 'security' was once an anti-political 'exception' in liberal democracies - a black box of secret intelligence and military decision-making at the dark heart of the state - it has now become normalised in professional political life. This represents a direct challenge to critical security studies debates and their core assumption that security is a kind of illiberal and undemocratic 'anti-politics'. Using archival research and interviews with politicians, Neal investigates security politics from the 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. In doing so, he develops an original reassessment of the security/politics relationship.
The history of recruiting citizens to spy on each other in the United States. Ever since the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden, we think about surveillance as the data-tracking digital technologies used by the likes of Google, the National Security Administration, and the military. But in reality, the state and allied institutions have a much longer history of using everyday citizens to spy and inform on their peers. Citizen Spies shows how "If You See Something, Say Something" is more than just a new homeland security program; it has been an essential civic responsibility throughout the history of the United States. From the town crier of Colonial America to the recruitment of youth through "junior police," to the rise of Neighborhood Watch, AMBER Alerts, and Emergency 9-1-1, Joshua Reeves explores how ordinary citizens have been taught to carry out surveillance on their peers. Emphasizing the role humans play as "seeing" and "saying" subjects, he demonstrates how American society has continuously fostered cultures of vigilance, suspicion, meddling, snooping, and snitching. Tracing the evolution of police crowd-sourcing from "Hue and Cry" posters and America's Most Wanted to police-affiliated social media, as well as the U.S.'s recurrent anxieties about political dissidents and ethnic minorities from the Red Scare to the War on Terror, Reeves teases outhow vigilance toward neighbors has long been aligned with American ideals of patriotic and moral duty. Taking the long view of the history of the citizen spy, this book offers a much-needed perspective for those interested in how we arrived at our current moment in surveillance culture and contextualizes contemporary trends in policing. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
Fair Game - How a Top Spy Was Betrayed…
Valerie Plame Wilson
Paperback
The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and…
H. Keith Melton, Robert Wallace
Paperback
Handbook of Public Policy and Public…
Xiaowei Zang, Hon S. Chan
Hardcover
R7,111
Discovery Miles 71 110
|