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Chatter

The back-cover implied that this book would provide an investigation into the NSA and the intelligence community. Having only read the 9/11 Commission Report, I had hoped to gain a better understanding of this field. Finishing this book, I was surprised at how little I had learned. Most of this information is readily gleaned from news broadcasts and movies.

Chatter resembles a high school report in that a large majority of the investigation is not the author’s own, but rather quotes and interpretations of other books. As I recall, the author only directly talks to a single ex-intelligence agent, although there are several interviews with other authors who’ve spoken with agents.

This type of third-person research isn’t a fault in itself, since many authors survey other material and provide a synthesis of that information and insight into it. Sadly, that is not the case with Mr. Keefe. He often expresses the moral and ethical questions many of us have, but then simply leaves them unanswered.

Keefe concludes by claiming that instead of actually mapping the territory of intelligence, he has staked out the borders. Given the numerous authors cited in this book, it seems that others have staked out the territory long before he took pen in hand.

It strikes me that readers should skim Chatter for the authors that are summarized and read their work instead. Keefe recaps Coppola’s “The Conversation” as an example of the paradoxes of intelligence interpretation. That movie is probably a better place to start if you’re interested in these issues.