Publisher Description
One day in the spring of 2013, a box appeared outside a fourth-floor apartment door in Brooklyn, New York. The recipient, who didn't know the sender, only knew she was supposed to bring this box to a friend, who would ferry it to another friend. This was Edward Snowden's box—materials proving that the US government had built a massive surveillance apparatus and used it to spy on its own people—and the friend on the end of this chain was filmmaker Laura Poitras.
Thus the biggest national security leak of the digital era was launched via a remarkably analog network, the US Postal Service. This is just one of the odd, ironic details that emerges from the story of how Jessica Bruder and Dale Maharidge, two experienced journalists but security novices (and the friends who received and ferried the box) got drawn into the Snowden story as behind-the-scenes players. Their initially stumbling, increasingly paranoid, and sometimes comic efforts to help bring Snowden's leaks to light, and ultimately, to understand their significance, unfold in an engrossing narrative that includes emails and diary entries from Poitras. This is an illuminating story on the status of transparency, privacy, and trust in the age of surveillance.
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About the Authors
Dale Maharidge is the author of ten books, one of which won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. His first book, Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, inspired Bruce Springsteen to write two songs. His second book, And Their Children After Them, won the Pulitzer Prize. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford University and has written for Rolling Stone, George magazine, The Nation, Mother Jones, and the New York Times, among others. He was a 1988 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and has had artistic residencies at both Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. He is a tenured professor at the graduate school of journalism at Columbia University.
Jessica Bruder is an award-winning journalist whose work focuses on subcultures and the dark corners of the economy. She has written for Harper’s, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. She teaches at the Columbia School of Journalism.
About the Narrators
Jonathan Todd Ross is a writer and an Earphones and Audie Award–winning voice actor. He has lent his voice to numerous anime television shows, including Yu-Gi-Oh! and Sonic X.
Chloe Cannon is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.