Darkish Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State

“Engrossing. . . . Gellman [is] a radical, exacting reporter . . . a fabulous narrator for this explicit story, as he nimbly guides us by means of complicated technical arcana and a few cussed moral questions. . . . Darkish Mirror could be merely pleasurable to learn if the story it informed didn’t additionally occur to be frighteningly actual.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Instances

From the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and creator of the New York Instances bestseller Angler, the definitive grasp narrative of Edward Snowden and the trendy surveillance state, based mostly on distinctive entry to Snowden and groundbreaking reportage around the globe.

Edward Snowden touched off a world debate in 2013 when he gave Barton Gellman, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald every an enormous and explosive archive of extremely categorized information revealing the extent of the American authorities’s entry to our each communication. They shared the Pulitzer Prize that yr for public service. For Gellman, who by no means stopped reporting, that was solely the start.  He jumped off from what Snowden gave him to trace the attain and methodology of the U.S. surveillance state and produce it to gentle with astonishing new readability.  Alongside the way in which, he interrogated Snowden’s personal historical past and located necessary methods through which delusion and actuality don’t line up.  Gellman treats Snowden with respect, however that is no hagiographic account, and Darkish Mirror units the report straight in methods which can be each fascinating and necessary.
 
Darkish Mirror is the story that Gellman couldn’t inform earlier than, a gripping inside narrative of investigative reporting because it occurred and a deep dive into the equipment of the surveillance state. Gellman recounts the puzzles, dilemmas and tumultuous occasions behind the scenes of his work – in prime secret intelligence services, in Moscow lodge rooms, in huddles with Publish attorneys and editors, in Silicon Valley govt suites, and in encrypted messages from nameless accounts. Inside the ebook is a compelling portrait of nationwide safety journalism underneath strain from authorized threats, authorities investigations, and international intelligence businesses intent on stealing Gellman’s information. All through Darkish Mirror, Gellman wages an escalating battle in opposition to unknown adversaries who power him to imitate their tradecraft in self-defense. 

With the vivid and insightful type that’s the creator’s trademark, Darkish Mirror is a true-life spy story concerning the surveillance-industrial revolution and its discontents. Alongside the way in which, with the good thing about contemporary reporting, it tells the total story of a authorities leak unequalled in drama since All of the President’s Males.