Have a bunch of Silicon Valley computer geeks figured out how to stop terrorists?

No one asks, “Where were you on 9/10?” and most people don’t remember. It’s only in hindsight that the details of a thoroughly ordinary day seem so remarkable.

Before a team of elite Navy forces stormed Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, they and senior US officials had closely studied a digital mock-up of the facility and even a physical miniature, able to be laid out on a table. It showed them the intelligence community’s best guess about what Bin Laden’s hiding [...]

A draft indictment against former NSA official Thomas Drake, which was never filed, shows that the government contemplated prosecuting him for a range of crimes, including conspiracy. But many of the most serious charges were dropped. Why? And what does it tell us about the Obama administration’s ongoing campaign to staunch leaks of classified information? [...]

I’ve long known that, on many important national security decisions, former president George W. Bush wasn’t in the driver’s seat. But I was shocked to discover that at one of the most critical points of his presidency, Bush wasn’t even in the car. Here’s my review of Bush’s shocking admission, in his new memoir, about [...]

The New York Times review is in today’s paper. Eric Lichtblau, no stranger to the opaque world of surveillance, gave it strong praise:

“it uses smart technical analysis and crisp writing to put the reader inside the room with the watchers and to help better understand the mind-set that gave rise to the modern surveillance state.”

“At its best ‘The Watchers’ provides an insightful glimpse into how Washington works and how ideas are marketed and sold in the back rooms of power, whether the product being peddled is widgets or a radical model for intelligence gathering.”

Check out this essay in the Wall Street Journal based on my book.  I take an in-depth look at what’s wrong with the U.S. security system, and how to fix it.

The United States is fighting a new kind of war, but the first shots were fired a generation ago. Check out my feature story in Washingtonian about the rise of cyber security in the U.S. government, told through the tales of two key actors.

I was a guest on Washington Journal this morning, talking about cyber war and my recent cover story in National Journal on how a U.S. cyber attack helped turn the tide of the Iraq war. The program lasted a half hour, and we took a number of good viewer questions.

Just a quick heads up to those who might not be on my e-mail list, a pointer to a cover story in Friday’s National Journal on China’s cyber militia. U.S. intelligence officials and computer security experts believe that Chinese hackers may be responsible for two major blackouts, as well as the theft of information from [...]