No Place to Hide
Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
Glenn Greenwald · 2014 · Politics & Society
10 min · 10 chaptersNarrated in your voice
Original summary · AI-drafted, human-published · added by Library
What it's about
Glenn Greenwald recounts how he came to receive and publish Edward Snowden's leaked NSA documents in 2013, laying out the scale of mass surveillance programs like PRISM and the bulk collection of phone metadata. The book argues that mass surveillance chills dissent, undermines democracy, and rests on a false trade between liberty and security. It mattered because it turned a whistleblower's disclosures into a sustained public argument about privacy in the digital age.
Reading plan
Pick a finish date and Genius lays out the days — the plan shows today's target and keeps you honest.
Read together
Start a circle and share the code — everyone sees everyone's honest place in the book. Accountability, not leaderboards.
Who it's for
- Readers who want the inside story of how the Snowden leaks reached the public - Citizens concerned about government surveillance and digital privacy - Journalists and students studying press freedom and national security reporting
What’s inside
- 1The Contact1 min
Greenwald argues that Snowden's insistence on encrypted communication before revealing anything was itself evidence of the seriousness and coherence of what he had to disclose, not paranoia.
- 2Ten Days in Hong Kong1 min
Greenwald contends that Snowden's decision to identify himself publicly, rather than leak anonymously, was a calculated act meant to force debate onto the substance of the programs rather than speculation about the leaker.
- 3Collect It All1 min
Greenwald argues the NSA's internal doctrine shifted from targeted surveillance of suspects to a goal of comprehensive collection of all global communications, a change he says the public never approved.
- 4The Complicity of Law and Corporations1 min
Greenwald contends that legal oversight mechanisms and corporate partnerships did not constrain surveillance but instead provided a veneer of legitimacy for programs operating with little real accountability.
- 5The Argument Against 'Nothing to Hide'1 min
Greenwald argues that privacy is a precondition for individual freedom and dissent, so mass surveillance harms even people who never do anything they consider wrong.
- 6Journalism Versus the State1 min
Greenwald argues that the U.S. government's response to the leaks, including surveillance of journalists and prosecution threats, revealed an attempt to criminalize adversarial journalism itself.
- 7The False Security Trade-off1 min
Greenwald argues that the security benefits claimed for bulk surveillance are unproven and that officials' public justifications did not withstand scrutiny once specifics were examined.
About Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is a former constitutional lawyer turned journalist who broke the Snowden story for The Guardian in 2013 and later co-founded The Intercept. He has written extensively on civil liberties, national security law, and government secrecy, and shared a Pulitzer Prize for the reporting this book describes.
What readers say
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