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ix PREFACE T his book represents the product of two decades of reading, writing, and teaching intelligence. Those efforts shaped me in many ways, changing my outlook on recent and ancient history. I felt a need to make sense of what I was seeing, and to do so in a way that others could share and debate the conclusions that seemed to press themselves on me. Needless to say, even attempting such a project looked daunting at first, as so many fine authors and exceptional researchers have dug into intelligence history and connected larger events to developments in the intelligence realm. I cannot match their acumen or stamina. The literature really has flowered over the last generation, and I stand on some very large shoulders to view the field. Nonetheless, I felt that hitherto unnoticed patterns were emerging in what these authors had found. Events in one country seemed to echo simultaneous events in another, for instance. Pivotal moments for the course of intelligence, like Lenin’s reconceptualization of revolutionary organization in 1903, suddenly took on new significance when viewed as problems of clandestine operations. Whole areas of endeavor, like the prodigious campaign to improve computer security that began in the 1960s, revealed unsuspected significance for intelligence policy and organization. The possible links between just these two examples—not to mention many others—came to fascinate me. If I wanted to read an explanation of such things and others like them, it seemed to me that I would have to write it. That was the task that I set for myself in 2010. I wanted to remain faithful to the details, to adapt a multinational perspective, to keep events in chronological order as much as possible , and to discuss recent archival revelations. Most of all, I hoped to place intelligence developments in their proper diplomatic, technological, and ideological contexts. Doing so gave me many surprises, which I have done my best to convey. The reader may judge how well I succeeded. I should explain that I finished this book just as the recent spate of leaks about US intelligence and allied efforts broke in the media, leaving observers surprised and a little bewildered about how to make sense of so many revelations. Viewing the reports and the ensuing controversy, I felt conflicting emotions. First, I wondered why so many seemed shocked, given the many leaks over the last decade. My second sensation was a curious regret; I would rather have been mistaken about the trend toward the unilateral declassification of sensitive intelligence matters in democratic nations. Recent events have confirmed for me the urgency of imparting a clearer understanding of intelligence to the public of this country and others. The goal of this book is to contribute to that understanding. Intelligence has gained unprecedented powers to invade the privacy of anyone, anywhere. Those powers have devolved from states to groups and even to individuals . In the process, they have become less, not more, accountable in many places. The only remedy I can foresee is to continue the decades-long project of bringing intelligence under law. If that project lapses, whether through a lack of insight or a lack of courage, then intelligence will continue to serve ideologies that view law itself as the problem, and which in effect destroy not only privacy but conscience as well. x preface ...

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