In addition, Gellman adds, some of those who said he should trust the national security establishment a few years ago have now become outspoken critics of President Trump, saying he's unfit as a commander-in-chief and has politicized the intelligence community.

Voters and consumers could not ask for change because they did not know the truth.' 'Congress faced no public pressure, and big internet companies encountered little demand for stronger defense of privacy. 'Because of that secrecy, even the best-informed journalists and policy analysts had no information on the way PRISM worked,' Gellman writes. The fundamental problem, Gellman says, is that after the 2001 al-Qaida attacks, the national security community assumed hugely expanded powers under surveillance programs established without public knowledge, let alone debate. 'The public had no need to know or contribute outside views on policy or law. 'McRaven believed in transparency inside the walled precincts of the FISA Court and the House and Senate intelligence committee,' Gelllman writes. One of those making the case was William McRaven, the now retired Navy admiral who oversaw the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. Many in the national security establishment argued that the checks and balances within national security agencies, as well as congressional oversight, should give the public confidence.

These would have been valid intelligence targets by any legal standard.' Disclosure of the details I allude to here would have caused self-evident harm to my country and some of its allies. 'I am not - in this context - a global citizen, indifferent to the outcomes of national conflict. government - in a meeting with Executive Editor Marty Baron, whom he had never met. Gellman had to explain the story - and the likely fight it would provoke with the U.S. When Snowden reached out, Gellman turned to the Washington Post, the newspaper where he had worked for two decades but had left three years earlier. 'I think Snowden did substantially more good than harm, even though I am prepared to accept (as he does not) that his disclosures must have exacted a price in lost intelligence,' Gellman writes.

But throughout, Gellman offers a much broader perspective, rather than just one-sided advocacy. Seven years after they first made contact, Gellman remains sympathetic to Snowden's crusade to expose surveillance programs previously unknown to the American public. Snowden handpicked Gellman as one of three journalists to tell his story originally. Gellman offers the most detailed, comprehensive and balanced take on the impact of Snowden's 2013 revelations and what they mean today, as the debate on national security versus individual privacy keeps evolving. Yet Barton Gellman's new book, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden And The American Surveillance State, makes a major contribution largely absent in the earlier efforts.

How?Д®dward Snowden's story on disclosing some of the National Security Agency's most sensitive surveillance programs has by now been oft told, by Snowden himself, among others. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Dark Mirror Subtitle Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State Author Barton Gellman

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