An author and journalist, Shane Harris has spent the past decade writing for prominent magazines and newspapers. His work has focused primarily on national security and counterterrorism. He is the author of the book The Watchers, a narrative about the rise of terrorism surveillance in the United States, told through the stories of five men who’ve played instrumental roles in some of the most important and controversial intelligence programs of the past quarter century (Penguin Press, 2010). Shane is currently senior writer for Washingtonian magazine, and he writes for other national publications and frequently speaks to the public and the news media.

Shane has three times been named a finalist for the prestigious Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, which honor the best journalists in America under the age of 35. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal,  Slate, The Daily Beast, TheAtlantic.com, National Journal, The Washington Post, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings. He is a frequent guest on national and international radio and television programs,  and his work has been cited by other media organizations and journalists, including The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, Wired, and Ted Koppel at the Discovery Channel. He has provided analysis and commentary for CNN, the BBC, The History Channel, NPR, and many local public radio stations.

Many  of Shane’s stories are about the inner workings of the U.S. intelligence community, and particularly those individuals who’ve spent their careers on the front lines of national security. He has broken several important stories, including the transfer of the controversial Total Information Awareness program into a secret intelligence agency; foreign penetration of computer networks that control parts of the U.S. electrical grid; cyber espionage directed at American business executives and government officials; classified ties between private security companies and U.S. law enforcement; and key elements of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program.

In the course of his journalism career, Shane has written about a range of other topics, including diplomacy, technology, government contracting, and the U.S. reconstruction program in Iraq. He has written profiles of prominent figures of past and present, including secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, and Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon.

Prior to joining Washingtonian, in 2010, Shane was a staff correspondent for National Journal for five years. Before that post, he was the technology editor and a staff correspondent at Government Executive magazine, the premiere publication covering management in the federal government. He spent five years at the magazine, and continues to write a regular column on the intelligence community. Shane also was the managing editor for Movieline magazine in Los Angeles, for which he covered the film industry and oversaw the work of the publication’s editorial staff and its Web site. Shane began his journalism career in 1999, as the research coordinator and a writer for Governing magazine in Washington, where he covered issues and trends affecting state and local government officials nationwide.

Shane graduated from Wake Forest University with a B.A. in Politics in 1998. He is also a fiction writer. While living in Los Angeles, he helped found and served as the artistic director of a sketch comedy troupe. Shane is a Sundance Film Festival screenwriting finalist. For his work on Chinese cyber espionage, Shane received an honorable mention from the judges of the Edgar A. Poe Award, given by the White House Correspondents’ Association for excellence in coverage of news of national or regional significance.