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Book Review: 'Means of Control' charts the disturbing rise of a secretive US surveillance regime


In the book “Means of Control,” former Wall Street Journal reporter Byron Tau exposes in disturbing detail how private Beltway contractors have grown a secretive surveillance regime, AP technology reporter Frank Bajak writes.

How private Beltway contractors grew what has become a secretive surveillance regime is exposed in disturbing detail by journalist Byron Tau in his first book, “Means of Control.” In the absence of a federal privacy law, the U.S. national security establishment has used commercially available data to craft a creeping panopticon. As a Wall Street Journal reporter, Tau broke important stories on how the shadowy U.S. data collection and brokering industry has been indirectly — and legally, it seems — eavesdropping on tens of millions of Americans and foreigners in the service of U.S. military, intelligence and homeland security. When Tau does get a breakthrough, it is often on surveillance partnerships that help foil a bad guy — like the U.S. border drug tunnel Department of Homeland Security agents uncover in 2018 with cellphone geolocation data obtained from a company called Venntel.

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