The Puzzle Palace is a monumental reporting feat on the National
Security Agency, the most secret government agency America has ever had. Organized in 1952 as a codemaking and codebreaking agency, the NSA has also tapped and translated foreign radio, scanned satellite signals, and burglarized offices. It’s gathered intelligence on organized crime and Cuba (for President Kennedy), and Vietnam protesters and drug dealers (for Johnson and Nixon). It has tried to completely avoid public scrutiny and legal constraint; it’s the kind of agency that can only exist in a government that feels it is at war. I got lost sometimes in the book’s voluminous detail, but it’s a necessary book and I’ll forgive some denseness.
It’s our first glimpse of the police that Ivan Illich foresees for the
