Chatter, Patrick Radden Keefe
Chatter, Patrick Radden Keefe
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Chatter
Uncovering the Echelon Surveillance Network and the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping

Author: Patrick Radden Keefe

Narrator: Patrick Radden Keefe

Abridged: 5 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/22/2005


Synopsis

How does our government eavesdrop? Whom do they eavesdrop on? And is the interception of communication an effective means of predicting and preventing future attacks? These are some of the questions at the heart of Patrick Radden Keefe’s brilliant new book, Chatter.

In the late 1990s, when Keefe was a graduate student in England, he heard stories about an eavesdropping network led by the United States that spanned the planet. The system, known as Echelon, allowed America and its allies to intercept the private phone calls and e-mails of civilians and governments around the world. Taking the mystery of Echelon as his point of departure, Keefe explores the nature and context of communications interception, drawing together fascinating strands of history, fresh investigative reporting, and riveting, eye-opening anecdotes. The result is a bold and distinctive book, part detective story, part travel-writing, part essay on paranoia and secrecy in a digital age.

Chatter starts out at Menwith Hill, a secret eavesdropping station covered in mysterious, gargantuan golf balls, in England’s Yorkshire moors. From there, the narrative moves quickly to another American spy station hidden in the Australian outback; from the intelligence bureaucracy in Washington to the European Parliament in Brussels; from an abandoned National Security Agency base in the mountains of North Carolina to the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

As Keefe chases down the truth of contemporary surveillance by intelligence agencies, he unearths reams of little-known information and introduces us to a rogue’s gallery of unforgettable characters. We meet a former British eavesdropper who now listens in on the United States Air Force for sport; an intelligence translator who risked prison to reveal an American operation to spy on the United Nations Security Council; a former member of the Senate committee on intelligence who says that oversight is so bad, a lot of senators only sit on the committee for the travel.

Provocative, often funny, and alarming without being alarmist, Chatter is a journey through a bizarre and shadowy world with vast implications for our security as well as our privacy. It is also the debut of a major new voice in nonfiction.

About The Author

Patrick Radden Keefe was a Marshall Scholar and a 2003 fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. A third-year student at Yale Law School, he has written for The New York Review of Books, The Yale Journal of International Law, Legal Affairs, and Slate.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Christopher on February 01, 2008

I have read a bunch of books on spying and intelligence agencies over the years. Most of their authors allowed themselves the luxury of blurring the line between plainly observable / provable facts and wild flights of fanciful conjecture. This book is a refreshing change in that and other regards. Pa......more

Goodreads review by W.T. on June 25, 2009

This is a remarkable book about "sigint" (signals intelligence). The first half is a chilling detailing of how telecommunications of all sorts are swept up by numerous listening stations around the world, a central part of a UK-USA agreement (including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). The second......more

Goodreads review by Ryan on March 30, 2022

The most interesting aspect of this book is how much the world has changed since it was published 15 years ago. It's a quaint snapshot of a world beginning to really worry about technology and privacy issues right before smartphones and wi-fi connectivity blew up all around the world and caused us t......more

Goodreads review by Peter on July 27, 2023

A really good read and an interesting topic. The book is of course hindered by being written in the mid 2000s published before the iPhone existed. Still relevant despite being post 9/11 and pre Wikileaks.......more

Goodreads review by Miki on June 22, 2024

As always, Radden Keefe writes fantastic narrative nonfiction about Echelon spying on and listening to whomever they want. Unsurprisingly, Canada is involved in this network of spies. Radden Keefe is a master at writing investigative journalism pieces, but I admit that the subject matter isn't all t......more