The Puzzle Palace suffers because it is locked in time. First published in 1984, it was no doubt a revelatory expose of the NSA, following on the Church Commission reports, but it really pales compared to what is happening today. The book does a great job of laying out the history of the organization going back to the work of original cryptologist, Herbert Yardley, in the early Twentieth Century, following through the Agency’s official establishment by President Truman in 1952, and the years of growth and public deception, as its employees happily eavesdropped on telegrams, telexes, and phone calls from all over the world. The narrative bogs down quite a bit with sections that just seem to list name after name after name of people who occupied this office or that in an alphabet soup of organizations. It’s not James Bamford’s fault, but what is really needed is a Puzzle Palace 2.0, which picks up on the government funding of Google in the 1990s and follows through the establishment of the 1.5 million square foot NSA Data Center in Utah. ( )

While interesting in many respects, I suspect that this look at the code-breaking authority National Security Agency is largely obsolete, given the vast changes in technology that have occurred in the 35+ years since its publication. Of current interest is the fact that the FISA court is described, and at one point, Joe Biden (long before he was famous) is quoted. Some of this might have been quite new when it was published here, but of course, with the passage of time, it's old hat. ( )

The first book of three on the NSA, written over the years. I'm reading all three in honor of the current PRISM brouhaha. Main takeaway: the NSA is the largest, most expensive agency in government. It also has no basis in law for its existence, just a 1952 presidential executive order. And PRISM is hardly the first illegal project for the NSA. It most does illegal intercepts... ( )

A critical, detailed -- and the first major -- look at the National Security Agency. A classic of espionage history. ( )

לא סיימתי. מלא אינפורמציה לא חשובה ולא מעניינת. מעט מאוד מידע של ממש. כתוב גרוע. ( )