No Place to Hide by Glenn Greenwald

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald was an interesting book from the writer who Snowden provided untold numbers of classified NSA documents for Greenwald to publish stories on.

The book feels to be split into thirds, with the first two chapters about Greenwald and Snowden and their lives intersecting (as a result of Snowden reaching out to Greenwald), chapters three and four being on the surveillance of largely U.S. citizens done by the NSA and then chapter five containing Greenwald’s thoughts on the response of the media to Snowden as well as Greenwald when the stories began to publish.

I did find myself skimming the two middle chapters on data the NSA collected, but all in all, it struck me as a good read, especially for anyone interested in the role of government as well as that of journalism in our society. I found particularly noteworthy the final chapter in which Greenwald wrote of both Snowden and he having their characters impugned as an attempt to discredit the sources of the information, and distract from an examination and discussion of NSA surveillance and its legality.

Writing on journalists & government secrets - by Fagone and Paterniti

Two fascinating pieces of recent writing from authors I like quite a bit dealt with the topic of writers and government secrets.

For the June issue of GQ Magazine, Michael Paterniti did a Q&A (including a fairly lengthy intro) with Glenn Greenwald titled "The Man Who Knows Too Much" that featured some tremendously interesting detail on Greenwald's interactions with government whistleblower Edward Snowden (who I've linked to stories on here).

The other piece to note here was posted a few weeks ago to the website Medium by Jason Fagone with "The Secret to Getting Top-Secret Secrets" on freelance journalist Jason Leopold and his practice of constantly filing FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests for government documents. It's really remarkable reading on the seemingly secret government information that may become available if asked for (and asked for, and asked for).

Writing on NSA & CIA activities and people impacted - by Reitman, Apuzzo & Goldman

Two fascinating stories recent stories fell under the topic of government secrets and the lives impacted by them. "Snowden and Greenwald: The Men Who Leaked the Secrets" was by Janet Reitman for Rolling Stone and a great in-depth profile on both Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald. I posted a few months ago on Greenwald's forthcoming media venture backed by Pierre Omidyar and there's really interesting detail in this Reitman piece.

The second piece of excellent writing to mention here was "Missing American in Iran was on an unapproved mission" by Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman for the Associated Press. The story an almost unbelievable, but meticulously reported account (which the AP several times held off on printing at government request) about Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing in Iran back in 2007. Levinson was long said by the U.S. government to have been in Iran as a private citizen, but actually working for the CIA on a contract basis. CIA leaders were denying this fact to Congress, and may not even have been aware they were lying as Levinson's work was arranged by CIA analysts rather than field agents, a violation of known Agency protocol.

It's an amazing and somewhat sobering story and definitely feels related to the actions taken by Snowden and Greenwald as written about in the Rolling Stone piece.

Business of writing - on Omidyar, Greenwald & new media

There were some fascinating pieces in the past few weeks covering the business of writing, in particular stories on a forthcoming startup news site backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (who I posted about back in 2009) and with noted investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald as a key principal.

The first piece that stood out to me as interesting on the venture was for the New York Times by David Carr. "An Interview With Pierre Omidyar" notes how Omidyar looking at an investment in the $250M range and in his now hometown created Honolulu Civil Beat, a site Carr described as doing "public affairs reporting with an eye toward giving citizens a look into the affairs of government."

Also about the new site was for Nieman Journalism Lab with Adrienne LaFrance writing "What does Pierre Omidyar see in journalism?" It was tremendously interesting stuff from someone who worked at Honolulu Civil Beat alongside Omidyar and whose description of that still ongoing site fairly closely matches that from Carr, with LaFrance saying "Omidyar’s goal for us was simple and neutral: Ask tough questions on behalf of the public to make this community a better place."

In terms of Greenwald as a lead investigative journalist for the new venture, he's known for receiving and reporting on NSA surveillance documents from Edward Snowden and just today, Greenwald did the interesting essay "On Leaving the Guardian" in which he wrote about journalism, it's role and importance.

Only in part about the site backed by Omidyar was an interesting short piece by Hamish McKenzie and Sarah Lacy to the website PandoDaily. "Vox’s new mega-round puts a bow on content’s 'holy shit' moment" covered the abundance of new media sites in recent years and high valuations on many of them. It was fascinating stuff and brought to mind Lacy's 2008 book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good (which I reviewed in the first few months of my writing this blog). On this same theme of hot new media companies, I was reminded of the service that to me helps make it possible for them to thrive, Twitter. The best writing I recall on the company and the power of it's links (literally) was by Clay Travis with "2011 belonged to Twitter, so does the future of sports media" for his college football focused sports website Outkick the Coverage.