The official report that has shaped the international debate about NSA surveillance "We cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly 'trusting' our public officials."—The NSA Report This is the official report that is helping shape the international debate about the unprecedented surveillance activities of the National Security Agency. Commissioned by President Obama following disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, and written by a preeminent group of intelligence and legal experts, the report examines the extent of NSA programs and calls for dozens of urgent and practical reforms. The result is a blueprint showing how the government can reaffirm its commitment to privacy and civil liberties—without compromising national security.

This third edition of Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones's engrossing history of the Central Intelligence Agency includes a new prologue that discusses the history of the CIA since the end of the Cold War, focusing in particular on the intelligence dimensions of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Praise for the earlier editions: "I have read many books on the CIA, but none more searching and still dispassionate. Nor would I have believed that a book of such towering scholarship could still be so lucid and exciting to read."--Daniel Schorr "This is one of the best short histories of the CIA in print, up-to-date and based on a wide range of sources."--Walter Laqueur "Judicious and reasonable. . . . A sophisticated study that should challenge us to take a more serious view about how our democracy formulates its foreign policy."--David P. Calleo, New York Times Book Review A brief, yet subtle and penetrating, account of the Central Intelligence Agency."--Leonard Bushkoff, Christian Science Monitor "Subtle and crisply written. . . . A book remarkable for its clarity and lack of bias."--William W. Powers, Jr., International Herald Tribune, Paris

“Takes a sophisticated approach to big questions . . . assess[es] the huge role of government in American life in an illuminating way.” —Frances Fox Piven Despite widespread anti-government sentiment in recent decades—including complaints that it does too much and that it doesn’t do enough—the fact remains that government has improved the lives of Americans in numerous ways, from providing income, food, education, housing, and healthcare support, to ensuring cleaner air, water, and food, to providing a vast infrastructure upon which economic growth depends. In What American Government Does, Stan Luger and Brian Waddell offer a practical understanding of the scope and function of American governance. They present a historical overview of the development of US governance that is rooted in the theoretical work of Charles Tilly, Karl Polanyi, and Michael Mann. Touching on everything from taxes, welfare, and national and domestic security to the government’s regulatory, developmental, and global responsibilities, each chapter covers a main function of American government and explains how it emerged and then evolved over time. Luger and Waddell are careful to identify both the controversies related to what government does and those areas of government that should elicit concern and vigilance. Analyzing the functions of the US government in terms of both a tug-of-war and a collaboration between state and societal forces, they provide a reading of American political development that dispels the myth of a weak, minimal, non-interventionist state, in a major contribution to the scholarly debate on the nature of the American state and the exercise of power in America.

In The Revolution Has Come Robyn C. Spencer traces the Black Panther Party's organizational evolution in Oakland, California, where hundreds of young people came to political awareness and journeyed to adulthood as members. Challenging the belief that the Panthers were a projection of the leadership, Spencer draws on interviews with rank-and-file members, FBI files, and archival materials to examine the impact the organization's internal politics and COINTELPRO's political repression had on its evolution and dissolution. She shows how the Panthers' members interpreted, implemented, and influenced party ideology and programs; initiated dialogues about gender politics; highlighted ambiguities in the Panthers' armed stance; and criticized organizational priorities. Spencer also centers gender politics and the experiences of women and their contributions to the Panthers and the Black Power movement as a whole. Providing a panoramic view of the party's organization over its sixteen-year history, The Revolution Has Come shows how the Black Panthers embodied Black Power through the party's international activism, interracial alliances, commitment to address state violence, and desire to foster self-determination in Oakland's black communities.

While several fine texts on intelligence have been published over the past decade, there is no complementary set of volumes that addresses the subject in a comprehensive manner for the general reader. This major set explains how the sixteen major U.S. intelligence agencies operate, how they collect information from around the world, the problems they face in providing further insight into this raw information through the techniques of analysis, and the difficulties that accompany the dissemination of intelligence to policymakers in a timely manner. Further, in a democracy it is important to have accountability over secret agencies and to consider some ethical benchmarks in carrying out clandestine operations. In addition to intelligence collection and analysis and the subject of intelligence accountability, this set addresses the challenges of counterintelligence and counterterrorism, as well covert action. Further, it provides comparisons regarding the various approaches to intelligence adopted by other nations around the world. Its five volumes underscore the history, the politics, and the policies needed for a solid comprehension of how the U.S. intelligence community functions in the modern age of globalization, characterized by a rapid flow of information across national boundaries.