Reddit mentions of The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization

Actually, it was David Kahn's The Codebreakers that was going to reveal the UKUSA agreement when is was first published in 1967, which would have revealed the way the US and UK could spy on their domestic populations by swapping data. The NSA persuaded the publisher to strike that page from the finished product, the first time that the US ever pre-censored a civilian publication. Technically "legal" in that the publisher did it "voluntarily" rather than coerced.

In 1983 James Bamford reproduced the missing page in The Puzzle Palace. At this point it was now formally known that the US and UK could spy on anyone, anywhere in the world, and get away with it. (Each organization can spy on everything-minus-their-own-country. All it takes is two countries to agree to fill in the holes for each other and both can "legally" know everything.)

NSA has been doing this for over 50 years. It has been known to those who cared to look for over 30 years. Snowden really only revealed their tactics and technology, not their strategy or goals. Their goal has always been Total Information Awareness.

You should try to understand an issue before you become outraged about it. Google, and every other telephone and internet company that does business in the US, must abide by the laws of the US. One of those laws permits the government the right to see information relevant to an investigation, if they first get a warrant from a judge. Google's system was designed to give access to only what they were legally required to show when a warrant was issued, not to allow warrant-less, widespread surveillance.

Of course, the sad fact is that since WWI many companies have been willing to allow warrant-less surveillance to the US government. Puzzle Palace describes some instances. However, there is no evidence that Google has done so.

Finally, IANAL but I believe that the answer to your last question is that there is no difference between US citizen and non-US citizen email in the context of a police investigation. The data is stored on a US server, and with the correct warrant issued by a judge the US government can get the right to see that data.

Read Puzzle Palace. While it predates Snowden by several decades, it's still probably the best book written about the organization.

It's a book published in 1983.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Puzzle-Palace-Intelligence-Organization/dp/0140067485

Anyone with a brain who had ever read a book about the CIA or NSA would KNOW fucking KNOW that all those communications are monitored. Trump and his idiot know-nothing family deserve everything that happens to them from this point on.

Two books everyone should read.

The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization

[Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA](
https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495854882&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=leagecy+of+ashes)

We have hung spies in this country before. We should continue that practice.

The worst part is that one of his novels, The Puzzle Palace, shares its title with a nonfiction book about the NSA by James Bamford which happens to be one of the best books written about the NSA... so now you have to be careful when mentioning it, so people don't confuse it with the Dan Brown novel (which is also about the NSA, 'The Puzzle Palace' being one of the real nicknames for the agency)

This book: "The Puzzle Palace", was written in 1983 and is still amazing today. At that time, the source indicates that it took 14 acres of cooling equipment to keep the NSA's computers from overheating (as I remember).

http://www.amazon.com/American-Black-Chamber-Bluejacket-Books/dp/1591149894/ref=sr_1_1/189-5393201-2174227?ie=UTF8&qid=1414715465&sr=8-1&keywords=the+black+chamber

And

http://www.amazon.com/The-Puzzle-Palace-Intelligence-Organization/dp/0140067485/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414715506&sr=8-1&keywords=puzzle+palace


?

What's old is new again... 1983 book published on NSA's intelligence gathering The Puzzle Palace. James Bamford has a couple of follow up books from 2007/2008 also.

You're right that there's nothing to prove that the content of every call in the US is being monitored. There is evidence that every call entering or leaving the US has been monitored since the 70s, and we know that they sometimes monitor people with three degrees of separation from a suspect, but they aren't saying if that means metat-data or actual phone calls.

That's your own fault – all of this has been documented and explained for years before Snowden started his data leaking. Someone that seems to be well-respected by lots of Snowden followers is James Bamford. Check out his books – any of them, but I'd start with The Puzzle Palace[1] – and you'll read about data collection programs that date back to Black Chamber[2][3] and analog recording of phone conversations through phone cable routers. Incredible books that I enjoyed reading, and anyone seriously interested in intelligence/security studies should read, too.

It's nothing new. Just because you didn't read the book doesn't mean it isn't out there. I wouldn't dare dispute that Snowden has given these topics a higher profile than they've ever had, but I would be equally reluctant to give him credit for exposing the existence of sophisticated data collection programs. It's an absolutely essential dialogue to have and I'm glad that the country is engaged in it, but Snowden is not the savior or intellectual that people are making him out to be.