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Top Secret America
- The Rise of the New American Security State
- Narrated by: Dana Priest
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
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Publisher's summary
The top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or exactly how many agencies duplicate work being done elsewhere. The result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger.
In Top Secret America, award-winning reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin uncover the enormous size, shape, mission, and consequences of this invisible universe of over 1,300 government facilities in every state in America; nearly 2,000 outside companies used as contractors; and more than 850,000 people granted "Top Secret" security clearances.
A landmark exposé of a new, secret "Fourth Branch" of American government, Top Secret America is a tour de force of investigative reporting - and sure to spark national and international alarm.
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The United States military currently views cyberspace as the "fifth domain" of warfare - alongside land, sea, air, and space - and the Department of Defense, National Security Agency, and CIA all field teams of hackers who can - and do - launch computer virus strikes against enemy targets. In fact, as @War shows, US hackers were crucial to our victory in Iraq.
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The short history of the US and Cyber War
- By Greg on 02-06-15
By: Shane Harris
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Pay Any Price
- Greed, Power, and Endless War
- By: James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses - and until this audiobook, it has worked very hard to cover them up.
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If you care about our liberties, read this book.
- By John L. Moncrief on 11-02-14
By: James Risen
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The Way of the Knife
- The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
- By: Mark Mazzetti
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Mazzetti examines secret wars over the past decade, tracking key characters from the intelligence and military communities across the world. Among the characters we meet in The Way of the Knife are a young CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played; an Air Force test pilot who fired the first drone missile in the Nevada desert; and a chain-smoking Pentagon official who ran an off-the-books spying operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Excellent critique of covert operations
- By Keefer on 04-27-13
By: Mark Mazzetti
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The Perfect Weapon
- War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
- By: David E. Sanger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents - Bush and Obama - drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal.
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mix of information and propaganda
- By Inthego on 06-14-19
By: David E. Sanger
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Code Warriors
- NSA's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union
- By: Stephen Budiansky
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The National Security Agency was born out of the legendary codebreaking programs of World War II that cracked the famed Enigma machine and other German and Japanese codes, thereby turning the tide of Allied victory. In the postwar years, as the United States developed a new enemy in the Soviet Union, our intelligence community found itself targeting not soldiers on the battlefield, but suspected spies, foreign leaders, and even American citizens.
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Did Vladimir Putin Steal the American Election?
- By Cynthia on 12-01-16
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Good Hunting
- An American Spymaster's Story
- By: Jack Devine
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine's time in the CIA, where he served for more than 30 years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the agency's spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering - all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this audiobook also sounds a warning to our nation's decision makers.
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Fascinating, An education on spying
- By Anthony on 12-13-15
By: Jack Devine
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Killer Elite: Completely Revised and Updated
- The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team
- By: Michael Smith
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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A top-secret US Army Special Operations unit has been running covert missions all over the world, from leading death squads to the hideout of drug baron Pablo Escobar to capturing Saddam Hussein and, in one of the greatest special operations missions of all time, helping to track down al-Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden. "The Activity," as it became known to insiders, has achieved near-mythical status, even among the world's Special Operations elite.
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Narrator is awful
- By Vinny on 09-20-17
By: Michael Smith
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Manhunt
- The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden - from 9-11 to Abbottabad
- By: Peter L. Bergen
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of the New York Times best-selling Holy War, Inc., this is the definitive account of the decade-long manhunt for the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda expert and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen paints a multidimensional picture of the hunt for bin Laden over the past decade, including the operation that killed him.
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DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!
- By Betty on 05-04-12
By: Peter L. Bergen
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At the Center of the Storm
- My Years at the CIA
- By: George Tenet
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In the whirlwind of accusations and recriminations that has attended the post 9/11 world, one man's vital testimony has been conspicuously absent. Candid and compelling, At the Center of the Storm is George Tenet's memoir of his life at the CIA - a revelatory look at the inner workings of America's top intelligence agency and its dealings with national leaders at home and abroad.
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Brilliant!
- By Karen on 05-05-07
By: George Tenet
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Raven Rock
- The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself - While the Rest of Us Die
- By: Garrett M. Graff
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A fresh window on American history: the eye-opening truth about the government's secret plans to survive a catastrophic attack on US soil, even if the rest of us die - a road map that spans from the dawn of the nuclear age to today.
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Awesome Read!!
- By Brewer Richardson on 05-05-17
By: Garrett M. Graff
What listeners say about Top Secret America
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- RF
- 06-14-20
our world post 9/11
Great book that shares the realization of our post 9/11 world, money, power, fear and our security focused government. While written in 2012, I can only believe that our government's organization of information has not improved.
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- Julie
- 01-27-12
Fascinating and maddening
What did you love best about Top Secret America?
The information Dana Priest reveals through her relentless journalistic efforts is not found elsewhere (at least compiled so completely).
What was one of the most memorable moments of Top Secret America?
Learning about the addition of 30+ new and specific intelligence agencies within months of 9/11, and scores more in the decade since, and how this information is barely known by anyone, including the taxpayers paying for them.
Have you listened to any of Dana Priest’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I've heard Dana Priest being interviewed before (on The Diane Rehm Show, for example), so her delivery of her own material was consistent with her style and fine with me. She speaks slowly and deliberately, which apparently bothered other listeners, but it didn't bother me much.
Any additional comments?
I found this book intersting from beginning to end. The material Dana Priest uncovered is also profoundly frustrating. There's got to be a better way for America to stay safe.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Gershom D.
- 12-22-11
Read by the author. You would think that's good
What made the experience of listening to Top Secret America the most enjoyable?
The subject is fascinating, the research well-done and careful. The national security industry is, as we all had the sneaking suspicion, a gigantic scam, the details of which no-one without a security clearance will ever know. This includes your elected representatives in government.The sheer magnitude of this new industrial complex will make you laugh. Nervously.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Dana Priest?
My hound dog. A high-school student. A recent immigrant in their second week of ESL class. Any one of a number of well-qualifed narrators. Dana Priest's rendition of her own work is flat and dull. She often misses the punctuation and cadence of her own sentences. I'm not sure what it says about a book when the author cannot be bothered to read it so that it is expressive and engaging. She sounds like she's reading someone else's work for the first time.
If you could give Top Secret America a new subtitle, what would it be?
Why the United States is spending billions of dollars on
Any additional comments?
Great subject, great book, lousy narration.
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1 person found this helpful
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- John A. Cote MSSI
- 11-28-21
Excellent sneak peek behind the Top Secret world!!
Loved it, couldn't stop listening. Very well researched work highly recommended!! Don't miss it
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- Toombs
- 10-18-11
Excellent, detailed account of a secret world
This book is a fascinating look at the reality and the dangers of the U.S. government's decision since 9/11 to become overly concerned with secrecy and classifying information. The government has become so concerned about protecting secrets that it now classifies too much information, impeding the ability of law enforcement operations to work efficiently and effectively.
On top of that, the government is now relentless spying on not just foreigners but American citizens as well with little oversight, citing the most baseless of suspicions and all in the name of fighting terrorism. The massive intelligence and spying system is guaranteed (if isn't already) to be abused in the future by administrations who want to target political enemies, as Nixon did when he ordered the FBI and CIA to harass anti-Vietnam activist groups and political enemies such as Daniel Ellsberg.
The end result, as Priest and Arkin expertly document, is that this giant system that we are literally spending tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars a year on is actually making us less safe. There is no reliable way to measure its effectiveness, and as Priest writes, many functions are wastefully duplicated by various govt organizations (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.) across the country. The information needed to make sense of the whole mess and to put the pieces together to improve the efficiency is classified and accessible only to select few top people in government with the high access to classified information. Yet the system is so complex and sprawling in size that no one person would ever have the time to make sense of the entire thing. It has taken Priest and Arkin years to get some sort of grip on what's going on, and that's working full time on this project.
The end result is a vastly bloated system that enriches the private companies that make up Top Secret America all while hurting the ability of the law enforcement to stop possible terrorist plots. The government must sort through 1.7 billion pieces of communication it stores a day to find the 1 or 2 pieces that might give them clues to actual terrorist plots. There is far too much noise in the system, but the answer in Top Secret America to any problem, as Priest and Arkin write, is more not less. More departments, more organizations, more technology, more classification.
When we live in times where budget deficits are giving politicians excuses to cut important programs that help Americans, such as Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, it's increasingly unsustainable to continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on Top Secret America, especially when, as Priest and Arkin expertly layout, the U.S. taxpayer is likely not getting their money's worth for all the spending.
Full disclosure: I read many articles and books on national security every year and was previously familiar with a lot of what Priest and Arkin write about in this book (much from the articles they write in the Washington Post). I can see how it's easier for me to follow along in the audio recording given I know a lot of the acronyms already and understand what she's talking about. If you are new to this world, it might be a bit more challenging to follow along. But the book is well written and Priest does a decent job narrating her own book (though, she talks in her typical monotone voice which may turn some people off).
I recommend reading this book, whether through Audible or through a hard copy. It's very important information that every American should take the time to understand, because like I mentioned above, Congress is cutting social programs but continuing to expand spending on national security and intelligence. Should they really be doing that?
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11 people found this helpful
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- Abi Hassen
- 09-18-11
good book, bad reader
great book. not very experienced reader. the content overcomes the amateur narration. the narrator is not terrible, but she is often too slow and clearly not an professional reader. bad narration can ruin audio books.
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3 people found this helpful
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- T.D.
- 07-29-19
Information that all Americans should know
First, I want to comment on all the complaints about narration - this isn't a novel. It's a work of non-fiction based on extensive investigative reporting. The author does a fine job of relaying her information in a clear manner. Is she Scott Brick, reading a riveting spy novel? No, nor should she be.
Getting on to the important stuff - the content. The authors have done years of research, conducted countless interviews and vetted all information and come up with an incredibly important summary of their findings. The amount of power the nations' intelligence agencies hold, absolutely undermines much of what America was built upon. We are supposed to have a government "of the people, by the people and for the people." Maintaining secret forces that have no real oversight from our elected officials is contrary to our Constitution.
We all need to be aware of the abuse of power and hold our elected officials to higher standards. The endless wars are making America *less* safe while costing us money that could be used to help make Americans' lives better. Let's hope more people wake up and take part in this incredibly important movement.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Steven Schuster
- 09-21-11
Important info revealed - Poor literature
Dana Priest has an important story to reveal here: Spending on the war on terror is out of control, there is duplication of services, no one is keeping track of this.
However this is poor literature. The book jumps around in what appears to be a random fashion. The book is loaded with buzzwords, initials of govn't services, almost impossible to keep up with. I still can't remember what a skiff is. Dana Priest's narration is terrible. She speaks in a monotone. Next time pay for a narrator, Dana you cheapskate.
The book which is based on some Washington Post articles appears to be a hurried attempt to monetize the articles. I guess Dana Priest's appearances on Washington Week don't pay all of her bills. Priest should have used The Great American Stickup as a guide on how to make disparate information interesting and accessible. It's a shame this book should have been much better
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2 people found this helpful
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- Richard
- 09-29-11
Hmmmm
Could have been more interesting with a different speaker, less monotone. Far too much time & detail on the abbreviations of all the various agencies, like it is an important fact we are to remember?
The premise of the book is excellent, the paranoia of security, privacy and control and how out of control
the body of our overall security is. I certainly don't feel any safer knowing what I just read and would not be surprised if we experienced another catastrophic event. The finger pointing would certainly be interesting and equally disgusting. Have a problem, throw more money at it.
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4 people found this helpful