Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror
by Michael V. Hayden
View on GoodreadsHayden's case is that spy agencies should work right up to the edge of what the law allows, and that your privacy, a value he says he shares, must sometimes give way to national security. He ran the NSA and later the CIA, so the memoir and the argument come from the same chair.
Core ideas
- After 9/11: His NSA surveillance of communications between people in the US and suspected foreign terror contacts became the warrantless surveillance controversy.
- Judged by the agencies: Bush, Obama, Cheney and Biden are sketched mainly by how they treated the NSA and the CIA.
- The critics: Journalists, members of Congress and hostile foreign leaders get sharp treatment, in his telling, as enemies of responsible intelligence work.
Published2016
Pages464
ISBN9781594206566
ReadJun 2025
