Five Stars!!! I can't think of any reason to dock this book a star. It's thorough, engaging, and even handed. It becomes easy to see why and how Hoover and company got their whole enterprise up and running, in response primarily to centuries of practice in intelligence by our foreign 'enemies' and 'allies.' The inevitable abuses of power are detailed. The conundrum of how to balance liberty and security will stay with you after you're done.
I have long wondered to what extent we as Americans are really 'free.' It turns out the answer is that we are not free and we never were. Unless you choose to go fully off the grid and hole yourself up in the woods (and even then you're still technically a citizen) you cannot avoid the interdependency of citizen and government. We belong to each other. If you have any intention of being an activist of any kind you should be aware that you will almost certainly come under the surveillance of the FBI at some point. I say this as factual, not as a warning, as I consider myself an activist on some subjects and less so on others. Even MLK's ostensibly peaceful movement was deeply surveyed.
Nixon is as big a scumbag as history suspected. Bush II was equally intolerant of dissent and challenge to Executive Power but managed to get away with it. It remains to be seen how his legacy will be affected. Obama has attempted to legally codify the expanded surveillance that Bush began. The pendulum is over on the side of heavy surveillance at the moment. It was probably at an historical low under Clinton, and perhaps not to the nation's benefit as regards terrorism preparation.
The FBI is as fallible, noble, cowardly, brilliant, as the general population, which means you can expect both courage and incompetence.
I haven't come to a conclusion as to whether our current surveillance state is warranted. I am still thinking it all through, which is a testament to this book and the questions it raises. The author has been more than fair.
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