They know everything about you : how data-collecting corporations and snooping government agencies are destroying democracy

273 Pages·2015·0.92 MB·English

by  Beladi

4/c process
soft touch matte lamination + spot gloss
current eVents/Politics
$26.99/$33.50 can
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praise for
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they know everything about you
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mit “ robert scheer reminds us that privacy is everything—the protector of our liberty, the guarantor of our personal o
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ggie autonomy, the fountainhead of our democracy—and yet it’s disappearing faster than an electronic blip moving w is a groundbreaking exposé of how government agencies and tech
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at warp speed from your computer to the nsa. with clarity and precision, scheer dissects the military-intelligence corporations monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, and a fierce
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robert scheer is the editor-in-chief of complex, showing it to be neither very secure nor very intelligent, but, rather, dangerous to us all.” v
defense of privacy and democracy.
—robert b. reich, chancellor’s professor of public policy, university of california at berkeley e
the webby award–winning online magazine truthdig, professor at
r the revelation that the government has access to a vast trove
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the university of southern california’s annenberg school for com- “ They Know Everything About You is a brilliant book. robert scheer, who covered my 1971 trial after i released the
of personal online data demonstrates that we already live in a
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Pentagon Papers, has been following privacy and surveillance issues for decades. he is a key voice and his book—
munication and Journalism, and co-host of Left, Right & Center, a h
surveillance society. but the erosion of privacy rights extends far
cogent, timely, and fascinating—is an indispensable text for our time.” —daniel ellsberg, author of
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weekly syndicated radio show broadcast from nPr’s west coast secrets: a memoir of vietnam and the pentagon papers n beyond big government. intelligence agencies such as the nsa and
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affiliate, kcrw. in the 1960s, he was editor of Ramparts magazine
cia are using silicon Valley corporate partners as their data spies.
“ robert scheer has undertaken a penetrating examination of americans’ disappearing privacy and issued a
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and later was national correspondent and columnist for the Los
clarion call in these pages, lest we unwittingly click-away our freedom.” —John w. dean, bestselling b seemingly progressive tech companies are joining forces with
Angeles Times. scheer is the author of nine books, including The author and former nixon white house counsel o
snooping government agencies to create a brave new world of
u
Great American Stickup. he lives in los angeles.
“ scheer is one of the most important journalists in america. he is not only brilliant, possessed by a fierce and t wired tyranny.

uncompromising integrity, but is a lyrical and often moving writer. all of these talents are on full display in his y life in the digital age poses an unprecedented challenge to
latest book about the rise of the security and surveillance state and the terrifying dystopia that will be visited o
our constitutional liberties, which guarantee a wall of privacy
upon us all unless our right to privacy is returned to us.” —chris hedges, fellow at the nation u

institute and coauthor of Days of Destruction, Days of revolt between the individual and the government. the basic assumption
of democracy requires the ability of the individual to experiment
“ this is what journalism looks like, provided by one of the greatest reporters of our times. scheer has written a
r with ideas and associations within a protected zone, as secured by
powerful indictment of the present-day corporate-government surveillance regime that has effectively elimi-
o
nated the right to privacy. like a master surgeon, he dissects the self-serving rationales for the wholesale illegal b the constitution. the unobserved moment embodies the most basic
spying on americans and shows them to be nonsense.” —robert w. mcchesney, author of e they know everything about you
r of human rights, yet it is being squandered in the name of national
blowing the roof off the twenty-First century t

s security and consumer convenience.
c
h robert scheer argues that the information revolution, while a
how data-collecting corporations and snooping
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$26.99/$33.50 can e source of public enlightenment, contains the seeds of freedom’s
Jacket design by Pete garceau r government agencies are destroying democracy
destruction in the form of a surveillance state that exceeds the
Jacket illustration © getty images/thinkstock
wildest dream of the most ingenious dictator. the technology of
available as an e-book
r o b e r t s c h e e r
nation books surveillance, unless vigorously resisted, represents an existential
a member of the perseus books group
www.nationbooks.org www.nationbooks.org author of the great american stickup threat to the liberation of the human spirit.
spot gloss indicated on page 2
THEY KNOW
EVERYTHING
ABOUT YOU
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Also by Robert Scheer
The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans
and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While
Mugging Main Street
The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked
9/11 and Weakened America
Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter,
Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton—and How They Did Not Prepare
Me for George W. Bush
The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq (with co-
authors Christopher Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry)
Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death: Essays on the Pornogra-
phy of Power
With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War
America After Nixon: The Age of the Multinationals
How the United States Got Involved in Vietnam
Cuba: An American Tragedy (with co-author Maurice Zeitlin)
Edited by Robert Scheer
The Cosmetic Surgery Revolution
Eldridge Cleaver: Post-Prison Writings and Speeches
by the Author of “Soul on Ice”
The Diary of Che Guevara
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THEY KNOW
EVERYTHING
A B OU T YOU
How Data-Collecting Corporations
and Snooping Government Agencies
Are Destroying Democracy
ROBERT SCHEER
with
Sara Beladi
New York
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Copyright © 2015 by Robert Scheer.
Published by
Nation Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group
116 East 16th Street, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Nation Books is a co-publishing venture of the Nation Institute and
the Perseus Books Group.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of
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Book design by Linda Mark
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scheer, Robert.
They know everything about you : how data-collecting corporations and
snooping government agencies are destroying democracy / Robert Scheer
with Sara Beladi and Joshua Scheer.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-56858-452-2 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-1-56858-453-9
(electronic) 1. Privacy, Right of—United States. 2. Democracy—United
States. 3. Data protection—United States. 4. Electronic surveillance—
United States. 5. Intelligence service—United States. 6. National
security—United States. I. Beladi, Sara. II. Scheer, Joshua. III. Title.
JC596.2.U5S24 2015
323.44'80973—dc23
2014034638
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To my sons:
Christopher, a terrifi c writer whose polishing of my prose
makes me look good and is decent enough not to rub it in;
Joshua, who once again did the heavy lifting research; and
Peter, whose editing of Truthdig frees me to write books.
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Contents
Preface ix
CHAPTER 1 The TED Moment: His Head on a Robot 1
CHAPTER 2 Cyber Sound Bites 25
CHAPTER 3 Mad Men Wired 57
CHAPTER 4 Privacy is Freedom 79
CHAPTER 5 The Military-Intelligence Complex 103
CHAPTER 6 A Whistleblower Shall Set Us Free 133
CHAPTER 7 Foreign Policy: A Tissue of Lies 157
CHAPTER 8 How the Digital Cookie Crumbles 177
Epilogue 195
Acknowledgments 213
Notes 215
Index 239
vii
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Preface
F
OR DEMOCRACY, PRIVACY IS THE BALL GAME. WITHOUT
the assurance of a zone of inviolate space, both physical and
mental, that a citizen can inhabit without fear of observation
by others, there is no guarantee of the essential sovereignty of the
individual promised in the First and Fourth Amendments to the US
Constitution. That should be clear, as it is to most people who have
been oppressed by the tyranny of authoritarian regimes. Indeed, as
Aldous Huxley and George Orwell brilliantly established in their
classic writing on this subject, the totality of societal observation
over the individual is the defi ning antithesis of freedom, even when
that observation is gained through hidden and subtle persuasion.
That much used to be obvious, particularly after the starkly
revealing experiences in the last century with overtly totalitar-
ian r egimes; Germany under both fascism and communism of-
fers the most startling example. In both instances, the advanced
ix
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