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Hello and welcome to Spycast from the Secret Files of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

I'm Peter Ernest, the Executive Director of the Museum. I served for some

36 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, largely as what is called an operations officer

or a case officer.

Every month we'll be bringing you interesting talks

with visitors, with authors, with others who

have something to do with the world of intelligence

and espionage. of Intelligence and Estuary.

My guest today is Shane Harris, a reporter with the National Journal.

He has written frequently on the subjects of National Security and intelligence, and his recent publication

is The Watchers, the rise of America's surveillance state.

And it has turned out to be an extraordinarily popular book.

It's being discussed in a variety of places here in Washington.

And what he has done is delved into the evolution over the past recent years of the government's

capability to surveil its people as it were.

So what I wanted, if we could, Shane, what I'd like to get at here is in your book you take the approach of focusing on some of the key figures and I hope

you bring that out in our discussion. But what are you coming away with as a reporter as someone who sits back and watches us as a people

Watches the nation? What's your bottom one? What's coming out here? What would you say to someone from Iowa who said

oh g you wrote a book you know what what's that about right right well the book is as you say

it's about people so I mean it's really a story of really five key individuals who spent most

of their careers over the past quarter century working in the intelligence community or in the

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