American Spies
Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, and What to Do About It

American Spies is an entertaining, accessible, and sophisticated exposition of the existing laws and technologies that enable massive modern surveillance.

Jennifer Stisa Granick (Author)

9781107103238, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 January 2017

354 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.61 kg

'Any book addressing modern surveillance faces … hurdles, yet Jennifer Stisa Granick, Director of Civil Liberties at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, manages to provide an expansive, nuanced, and engaging assessment of the complex surveillance state under which people in America live. American Spies is accessible to a wide audience, acting as an introduction to modern surveillance or a review for experienced lawyers. Indeed, the layperson who does not have extensive knowledge regarding surveillance law can engage in a worthwhile manner, as long as one managers the necessarily expansive use of acronyms in the text.' Alexandra Funk, The Champion

US intelligence agencies - the eponymous American spies - are exceedingly aggressive, pushing and sometimes bursting through the technological, legal and political boundaries of lawful surveillance. Written for a general audience by a surveillance law expert, this book educates readers about how the reality of modern surveillance differs from popular understanding. Weaving the history of American surveillance - from J. Edgar Hoover through the tragedy of September 11th to the fusion centers and mosque infiltrators of today - the book shows that mass surveillance and democracy are fundamentally incompatible. Granick shows how surveillance law has fallen behind while surveillance technology has given American spies vast new powers. She skillfully guides the reader through proposals for reining in massive surveillance with the ultimate goal of surveillance reform.

1. Modern surveillance: massive, classified, and indiscriminate
2. Word games
3. Snowden, surveillance whistleblowers, and democracy
4. We kill people based on metadata
5. The shadow of September 11th
6. Modern surveillance and counterterrorism
7. Americans caught up in the foreign intelligence net
8. Warrantless wiretapping of Americans under Section 702
9. Nothing to hide?: a short history of surveillance abuses
10. The minimal comfort of minimization
11. Do unto others: why Americans should protect foreigners' privacy rights
12. US surveillance law before September 11th
13. American spies after September 11th: illegality and legalism
14. Modern surveillance and the Fourth Amendment
15. The failures of external oversight
16. The National InSecurity Agency
17. The future of surveillance.

Subject Areas: International law [LB]