The shadow factory by James Bamford

The book reads like a thriller, starting from the ore 9/11 bombing right through to the Iraqi war. As a telecom engineer myself I was well impressed by the author's eye for detail when explaining the technical details of the survailence carried out by NSA in USA. Various colourful account of people involved in the clandestine effort made the book read like a crime thriller. I agree with the author's erudite conclusion that the NSA effort has achieve little at a huge cost. If anything the huge amount of data has made any viable operation almost impossible. Hopefully this book will help change opinions in USA.