No Place to Hide by Greenwald

Summary Paper- No Place to Hide by Greenwald

The government takes advantage of journalists and only lets the public see what it wants. As a result, lack of information leads to restricted freedoms.

The form of this book is a personal narrative. Greenwald is telling a story about his experience with the top secret documents and the story of how he got them and what happened. For example, on page 11. “By the first time we met, in 2010, she (Laura Poitras, very independent individual) had been detained in airports by the Department of Homeland Security more than three dozens of times as she entered the United States- interrogated, threatened, her materials seized… that changed after an unusually abusive interrogation.” Greenwald is telling us about how Laura explained to him how the US government was interrogating her abusively and non-abusively dozens of times. Another example of him telling us his story is on page 17. “I’m willing to do what I have to do to report this.” He is explaining that he, personally, wants to take down the US secret surveillance systems. Also, on page 18, Snowden describes his opinion. “I (Snowden) want to spark a worldwide debate about privacy, Internet freedom, and the dangers of state surveillance. I’m not afraid of what will happen to me.” In this excerpt, Greenwald is telling us about how Snowden feels the same way as he does. On page 23, Greenwald describes his motive for revealing the government’s wrongdoings. “My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them. The U.S. government, in conspiracy with client states, chiefest among them, the Five Eyes-the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand- have inflicted upon the world a system of secret, pervasive surveillance from which there is no refuge.” Greenwald describes how his motive is to inform the public. He personally wants to do that, therefore, the form is a personal narrative. It is a book about his experiences and it tells us his story.

In the book, Greenwald decides to put a bunch of slides and powerpoints into the book to try to give us a visual and to show us that he is not making all this up, he is actually showing us powerpoints and documents that the US government and NSA has made. For example, on page 110, Greenwald puts a chart on the page and a description. “Another (slide of powerpoint) details the wide range of communications that PRISM (a program) enables the NSA to access.” Greenwald then places the chart below the text. The chart shows the current providers to the PRISM program. These include Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple, and then shows what the NSA will receive and store from each carrier. Some cases are different than others, but in general the NSA can collect emails, chat (video, voice), videos, photos, shared data, file transfers, video conferencing, notifications of target activity (logins, etc.), online social networking details, and special requests made by the NSA. Greenwald uses this, once again, to give us the raw information that the NSA and US government are doing. He does not want people to believe that he is making all of this up and exaggerating it. Therefore, he provides documents and powerpoints to further describe how corrupt the NSA and government are. Another example of Greenwald doing this is on pages 144 and 145. “One 2010 document--shown here with some countries deleted--lists the nations whose diplomatic structures inside the United States were involved by the agency.” Then, there is a picture of the document on page 145 that shows various country’s embassies and UN outlets that are being spied on. The list includes about 20 countries that are being spied on. If you heard this on the street you probably wouldn’t believe that person. However, with the proof via a slide or document showing that the government is actually doing this stuff makes it a whole lot more concerning. Using this technique makes it obvious that Greenwald is a really good journalist. People often don’t know the real function of a journalist. A journalist is someone who who reads and interprets documents. In this case, Greenwald is trying to dumb down top secret government documents. He explains what the documents are saying and what the codewords which is essential for the reader because the reader needs to understand the documents.

Greenwald may be a journalist, but he is certainly not a normal one. He establishes ethos by being an outsider journalist. Most journalists rely on their newspaper company and only can publish what they want. However, Greenwald doesn’t apply to this rule. He can go on by himself and whatever newspaper company that will publish his works. He does not rely on one newspaper. There are various examples of this with him and the Guardian. One example is on page 64. “The threat was implicit and unambiguous: if I could not get the articles out immediately at the Guardian, I would go somewhere else.” Unlike most journalists, Greenwald can make this threat that if the Guardian doesn’t publish his articles, then he will simply move on to the next newspaper company and say the same thing. “I felt like I was running into exactly the sort of institutional barriers to doing aggressive reporting that I had joined the Guardian to avoid: Legal worries. Consultation with government officials. Institutional hierarchies. Risk aversion. Delay” (Pages 67-68). This is another quote from the book showing us that Greenwald is not happy with the Guardian. However, what makes Greenwald different from other journalists is that he is not stuck at the Guardian. He can move to other newspaper companies who won’t be afraid to publish his articles.

We all know that people need to have privacy somewhere. Privacy is a very important value that everyone needs. Greenwald explains this on page 172. “We all instinctively understand that the private realm is where we can act, think, speak, write, experiment, and choose how to be, away from the judgmental eyes

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