Bamford James. The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008. — 395 p.Journalist Bamford exposed the existence of the top-secret National Security Agency in The Puzzle Palace and continued to probe into its workings in his follow-up Body of Secrets. Now Bamford discloses inside, often shocking information about the transformation of the NSA in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001. He shows how the NSA's failure to detect the presence of two of the 9/11 hijackers inside the United States led the NSA to abandon its long-held policy of spying only on enemies outside the country. Instead, after 9/11 it turned its almost limitless ability to listen in on friend and foe alike over to the Bush Administration to use as a weapon in the war on terror. Bamford details how the agency has conducted domestic surveillance without court approval, and he frames it in the context of the NSA's ongoing hunt for information about today's elusive enemies.