Freedom & Security Books - Page 6

Schneier on Security

Bruce Schneier

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A compilation of articles published by Bruce Schneier from 2002 through the summer of 2008. 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Being a fan of Bruce Schneier's other books, I looked forward to his latest work "Schneier On Security", and certainly was not disappointed, although I found that I had read some sections of the book previously.

"Schneier On Security" consist of a compilation of articles published by Mr. Schneier from 2002 through the summer of 2008.

If you regularly read Crypto-Gram and Wired Magazine you will be familiar with some sections of this book. Articles published in other magazines and newspapers, and reprinted in this book, I had not previously read and enjoyed the opportunity to read them now.

As with all of Mr. Schneier's writings, the articles in the book are thought provoking yet at the same time easy to read.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, followed by a large list of web-sites providing additional information and references.

The chapters are:

Introduction
1 - Terrorism and Security
2 - National Security Policy
3 - Airline Travel
4 - Privacy and Surveillance
5 - ID Cards and Security
6 - Election Security
7 - Security and Disasters
8 - Economics of Security
9 - Psychology of Security
10 - Business of Security
11 - Cybercrime and Cyberwar
12 - Computer and Information Security
References
Index

Each chapter consists of a few previously published articles related to the chapter topic.

Well written, thought provoking, and an opportunity to get several of Mr. Schneier's articles collected into a single volume.

Highly Recommended.

Editorial Review:

Presenting invaluable advice from the worlds most famous computer security expert, this intensely readable collection features some of the most insightful and informative coverage of the strengths and weaknesses of computer security and the price people pay -- figuratively and literally -- when security fails. Discussing the issues surrounding things such as airplanes, passports, voting machines, ID cards, cameras, passwords, Internet banking, sporting events, computers, and castles, this book is a must-read for anyone who values security at any level -- business, technical, or personal.

The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Linda J. Bilmes

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Editorial Review:

"This is a catalog [of costs] the Bush team never looked at. It's a catalog that they still don't want you to see."—James Galbraith

America has already spent close to a trillion dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are hundreds of billions of bills still due—including staggering costs to take care of the thousands of injured veterans, providing them with disability benefits and health care. In this sobering study, Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard University's Linda J. Bilmes reveal a wide range of costs that have been hidden from U.S. taxpayers and left out of the debate about our involvement in Iraq. That involvement, the authors conservatively estimate, will cost us more than $3 trillion.

"Stiglitz and Bilmes have clearly demonstrated the need for Congress and the administration to ensure that those making sacrifices today will see those sacrifices honored in the future."—Dave W. Gorman, executive director, Disabled American Veterans

The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, Revised Edition

Fareed Zakaria

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Editorial Review:

differently."—Washington Post

A modern classic that uses historical analysis to shed light on the present, The Future of Freedom is, as the Chicago Tribune put it, "essential reading for anyone worried about the promotion and preservation of liberty." Hailed by the New York Times as "brave and ambitious...updated Tocqueville," it enjoyed extended stays on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post bestseller lists and has been translated into eighteen languages. Prescient in laying out the distinction between democracy and liberty, the book now contains a new afterword on the United States's occupation of Iraq.

"Intensely provocative and valuable," according to BusinessWeek, with an easy command of history, philosophy, and current affairs, The Future of Freedom calls for a restoration of the balance between liberty and democracy and shows how politics and government can be made effective and relevant for our time. This new edition includes a new afterword on America in Iraq.

America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between the United States and Its Enemies

George Friedman

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Editorial Review:

Dubbed by Barron’s as “The Shadow CIA,” George Friedman’s global intelligence company, Stratfor, has provided analysis to Fortune 500 companies, news outlets, and even the U.S. government. Now Friedman delivers the geopolitical story that the mainstream media has been unable to uncover — the startling truth behind America’s foreign policy and war effort in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond.

Stratfor, one of the world’s most respected private global intelligence firms, has an unmatched ability to provide clear perspective on the current geopolitical map. In America's Secret War, George Friedman identifies the United States’ most dangerous enemies, delves into presidential strategies of the last quarter century, and reveals the real reasons behind the attack of 9/11—and the Bush administration’s motivation for the war in Iraq. It describes in eye-opening detail America’s covert and overt efforts in the global war against terrorism: Not only are U.S. armies in combat on every continent, but since 9/11 the intelligence services of dozens of nations have been operating in close partnership with the CIA.

Drawing on Stratfor’s vast information-gathering network, Friedman presents an insightful picture of today’s world that goes far beyond what is reported on television and in other news media.

Al Qaeda’s war plans and how they led to 9/11

The threat of a suitcase nuclear bomb in New York and how that changed the course of the war.

The deal the U.S. made with Russia and Iran which made the invasion of Afghanistan possible – and how those deals affect the United States today.

How fear and suspicion of the Saudis after 9-11 tore apart the Bush-Saudi relationship and why Saudi Arabia’s closest friends in the administration became the Saudi’s worst enemies.

The real reasons behind George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and how WMD became the cover for a much deeper game.

How the CIA miscalculated about Saddam Hussein’s and Iran’s real plans, leaving the U.S. bogged down in the war.

How the war in Iraq began with a ruse, pretending that a “target of opportunity” attack on Saddam Hussein had presented itself.

The real story about why the U.S. raises and lowers its alert status and why the United States can’t find and destroy al Qaeda.

The strategic successes that are slowly leading the United States to victory

America's Secret War is an unprecedented look at the new world war being waged behind-the-scenes today. It is sure to stir debate and capture headlines around the world.

Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush

Thomas E. Woods Jr., Kevin R. C. Gutzman

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Editorial Review:

“Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
—Thomas Jefferson

The United States Constitution—the bedrock of our country, the foundation of our federal republic—is . . . dead.

You won’t hear that from the politicians who endlessly pay lip service to the Constitution. It’s the dirty little secret that bestselling authors Thomas E. Woods Jr. and Kevin R. C. Gutzman expose in this provocative new book. The fact is that government officials—Democrats and Republicans, presidents, judges, and congresses alike—long ago rejected the idea that the Constitution possesses a fixed meaning limiting the U.S. government’s power.

In case you’ve forgotten, this idea was not a minor aspect of the Constitution; it was the document’s very purpose.

Woods and Gutzman round up the suspects responsible for the death of the government the Founding Fathers designed. Going right to the scenes of the crimes, they dissect twelve of the most egregious assaults on the Constitution—some virtually unknown. In chronicling this “dirty dozen,” the authors show that the attacks began long before presidents declared preemptive wars, congresses built pork-barrel bridges to nowhere, and Supreme Court justices began to behave as our supreme legislators.

In Who Killed the Constitution? Woods and Gutzman

• REVEAL the federal government’s “great gold robbery”—the flagrant assault on the Constitution you never heard about in history class
• DESTROY the phony case for presidential war power
• EXPOSE how the federal government has actively discriminated to end . . . discrimination
• TEAR DOWN the “wall of separation” between church and state—an invention that completely contradicts what the Constitution says
• DARE to touch the “third rail of American jurisprudence,” Brown v. Board of Education—showing why a government decision that seems “right” isn’t necessarily constitutional

Never shying away from controversy, Woods and Gutzman reveal an unsettling but unavoidable truth: now that the federal government has broken free of the Constitution’s chains, government officials are restrained by little more than their sense of what they can get away with.

Who Killed the Constitution? is a rallying cry for Americans outraged by government run amok and a warning to take heed before we lose the liberties we are truly entitled to.

The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World

Allen W. Dulles

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Editorial Review:

This classic of spy craft is based on Allen Dulles's incomparable experience as a diplomat, international lawyer, and America's premier intelligence officer. Dulles was a high-ranking officer of the CIA's predecessor-the Office of Strategic Services-and was present at the inception of the CIA, where he served eight of his ten years there as director. Here he sums up what he learned about intelligence from nearly a half-century of experience in foreign affairs. In World War II his OSS agents penetrated the German Foreign Office, worked with the anti-Nazi underground resistance, and established contacts that brought about the Nazi military surrender in North Italy. Under his direction the CIA developed both a dedicated corps of specialists and a whole range of new intelligence devices, from the U-2 high-altitude photographic plane to minute electronic listening and transmitting equipment. Dulles reveals much about how intelligence is collected and processed, and how the resulting estimates contribute to the formation of national policy. He discusses methods of surveillance, and the usefulness of defectors from hostile nations.

Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays

George Orwell

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George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist. From his earliest published article in 1928 to his untimely death in 1950, he produced an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected—and illuminated—the fraught times in which he lived and wrote. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword to this new two-volume collection, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge—in short, to think—as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent."

Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites classics such as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these narrative essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (Vintage)

Rajiv Chandrasekaran

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A damning indictment 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Since I lived for a year in Baghdad's Green Zone, I felt it was necessary for me to read what happened before I got there, under L. Paul Bremer, bureaucrat extraordinaire. That is why I recently found myself reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

To say that the Bush Administration and its chosen Iraq occupation overlords made poor choices during and immediately after the invasion of that country would be an understatement so vast that I have no words to describe how big an understatement I would be making. Reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City reinforced for me many of the reasons why I heard the impact of so many mortars during my 2005-2006 sojourn to Iraq's largest city and at the time one of the most violent if not the most violent city in the world.

I met Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Baghdad in 2006, when I credentialed him for access to military bases. The man was humble, unassuming and patient with the bureaucratic process he endured, which is much more than I can say for Geraldo Rivera, who had sycophants hanging all over him and required that we open for a special session to credential him. In any case, the book itself is superly written in a professional tone.

The damning indictments of cronyism and poor decision making due to a complete lack of understanding of the culture and history of Iraq are presented artfully, without the forced overtones of sarcasm that would have appeared had I written Imperial Life in the Emerald City.

From the story of the Iraqi expatriatate who returns post invasion to open a five-star pizza shop only to find his American customers cannot leave their fortified enclave to the tale of the minor minister who is assasinated for trying to help his country without being politically involved, to the detailed descriptions of the "little America" inside a several square mile compound in downtown Baghdad, this book is well worth reading.

I do not know if L. Paul Bremer has yet publicly admitted how arrogant and stupid many of the decisions made in that first year of occupation were, but he knows it in his heart. If he doesn't that would mean the man has no heart.

Having served in Iraq, and having been to a few locales outside the "Emerald Palace" I called the Green Zone, I still hold pain in my heart for the people I met and for their suffering. Things may be turning around now in that country. But in reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City, it becomes clear that much of the violence that wracked the country and the city of Baghdad could have been avoided if things had been done differently in the beginning. We'll never know how many died because of bad decision making, but it is clear that the numbers are in the tens of thousands and possibly much higher.

If you've ever wondered what was really going on in those first days of the occupation, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

The Green Zone, Baghdad, 2003: in this walled-off compound of swimming pools and luxurious amenities, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority set out to fashion a new, democratic Iraq. Staffed by idealistic aides chosen primarily for their views on issues such as abortion and capital punishment, the CPA spent the crucial first year of occupation pursuing goals that had little to do with the immediate needs of a postwar nation: flat taxes instead of electricity and deregulated health care instead of emergency medical supplies.

In this acclaimed firsthand account, the former Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post gives us an intimate portrait of life inside this Oz-like bubble, which continued unaffected by the growing mayhem outside. This is a quietly devastating tale of imperial folly, and the definitive history of those early days when things went irrevocably wrong in Iraq.

Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened America's Enemies

Peter W. Galbraith

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Editorial Review:

Called by New York Times columnist David Brooks the "smartest and most devastating" critic of President George W. Bush's Iraq policies, Peter Galbraith was the earliest expert to describe Iraq's breakup into religious and ethnic entities, a reality now commonly accepted.

The Iraq war was intended to make the United States more secure, bring democracy to the Middle East, intimidate Iran and Syria, help win the war on terror, consolidate American world leadership, and entrench the Republican Party for decades. Instead,

• Bush handed Iran its greatest strategic triumph in four centuries
• U.S. troops now fight to support an Iraqi government led by religious parties intent on creating an Iranian-style Islamic republic
• As part of the surge, the United States created a Sunni militia led by the same Baathists the U.S. invaded Iraq to overthrow administration gave Iran and North Korea a free pass to advance their nuclear programs
• Obsessed with Iraq's nonexistent WMD, the Bush administration gave Iran and North Korea a free pass to advance their nuclear programs
• Turkey, a key NANATO ally long considered a model pro-Western Muslim democracy, became one of the most anti-American countries in the world
• U.S. prestige around the world reached an all-time low

Iraq: Galbraith challenges the assertion that the surge will lead to victory. By creating a Sunni army, the surge has, in fact, contributed to Iraq's breakup and set the stage for an intensified civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. If the United States wishes to escape the Iraq quagmire, it must face up to the reality that the country has broken up and cannot be put back together.

Iran: Having helped Iran's allies take control in Baghdad, the Bush administration no longer has a viable military option to stop Iran's nuclear program. Galbraith discusses how a president more pragmatic than Bush might get Iran to freeze its nuclear program as part of a package deal to upgrade relations between two countries equally threatened by Sunni extremism.

Turkey, Syria, and Israel: A war intended to make Israel more secure, undermine Syria's Assad regime, and strengthen ties with Turkey has had the opposite result.

Nationalism: In the coming decades, other countries may follow Iraq's example in fragmenting along ethnic and religious lines. Galbraith draws on his considerable experience in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia to predict where and what the United States might do about it.

The United States: George W. Bush substituted wishful thinking for strategy and as a result made America weaker. Galbraith provides some rules for a national strategy that will appeal equally to conservatives and liberals -- indeed, to anyone who believes the United States needs an effective national security strategy.

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (P.S.)

Samantha Power

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Editorial Review:

During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," she writes in this impressive book. Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past. --Shawn Carkonen