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1-Page Summary of No Place to Hide
Overview
Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the NSA and CIA, has been mentioned often in the media since he leaked a huge cache of government documents to journalist Glenn Greenwald in June 2013. Since then, news outlets have kept up a steady stream of reports about spying activities by intelligence agencies in advanced democracies.
No Place to Hide is about Edward Snowden and the leaks he released. The book delves into his background, explains what information was leaked, and discusses how it affects us all. Author Glenn Greenwald writes passionately against surveillance and in support of whistleblowers who are brave enough to speak out when they see something wrong happening. He’s a lawyer with years of experience as an independent journalist, so he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to freedom and privacy issues.
In the following points, you’ll discover how data related to a phone call can reveal more about you than the content of a single call. You’ll also learn that ineffective government surveillance activities seem to be preventing terrorism and how opinions on something like drugs change depending on who’s listening.
Big Idea #1: Individual privacy fosters who we are and what we believe in politically.
Most people are different in private than they are in public. For example, we might act differently when our parents or pastor is around instead of a policeman. Most people feel more free to be themselves in private and tend to change their behavior when they know someone else is watching them. An experiment at Stanford University showed that 77% of participants were for legalizing marijuana, but 44% changed their minds after being told police would see what they said about it.
This shows that people who are being watched will have a different opinion on political issues. People should be allowed to protest against the government, as it is healthy for democracy. However, governments have spied on those who go against them throughout history and online surveillance can help this happen even more now. The FBI has spied on anti-war groups and civil rights activists in the past; they even infiltrated some of these groups by posing as members or trying to influence others to commit crimes.
The government’s spying on its citizens has diminished their privacy and freedom. This is because the government doesn’t want people to know what they’re up to, so it spies on them in secret.
Big Idea #2: The NSA leaks were published amid great risks for both the whistleblower and the reporter.
The Snowden leaks were one of the most significant government leaks ever. They started with a leap of faith for author Glenn Greenwald, who suspected that the person contacting him could be a fantasist or even part of an elaborate government trap to bring down whistleblowers. But his contact turned out to be Edward Snowden, who had meticulously planned everything and was ready to accept punishment if caught in order to expose what he felt needed exposing about U.S. surveillance programs.
Snowden was a good analyst who combed through files before presenting them to the author. He knew what he did was illegal, but that didn’t stop him from leaking NSA documents. Since Snowden leaked those classified documents, he needed to find a safe place to go and stay out of US jurisdiction.
After initial discussions, Snowden decided to give some of the NSA documents to a Washington Post journalist. However, after the paper assembled a team of lawyers, who began issuing warnings and threats, he regretted doing so. Fearing potential consequences for himself as well as his source, the newspaper also barred its journalist from meeting with Snowden in person.
