Robert Scheer’s Mini Review of Glenn Greenwald’s New Book

Why is Edward Snowden so alone?

It is 4 a.m. and I have just finished reading, in one sitting, the Kindle download of a book that I intended only to skim because I thought that I knew the full story.

What was compelling was encountering the courage and decency of this whistle-blower and that of the few brave journalists willing to honestly tell his story. That and the justifiable contempt for those in the housebroken media and compromised government who felt the need to besmirch the character of those willing to bear witness to crimes that almost everyone else in a position to know chose to ignore.

The result is a page-turner survey of just what the Snowden leaks tell us about the creation of the modern surveillance state and a reminder of the deep wisdom of this nation’s founders in insisting on the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

This is a brilliant book that you will want to pass on to that neighbor absolutely convinced that the hollowing out of liberty has made us safer. Glenn Greenwald reminds us just why the Guardian and Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in publishing the documents that Edward Snowden made available, and how outrageous it is that his effort to inform the public of attacks on our freedom has left this brave young man a hunted fugitive.