Within this remarkable tour de force of investigative reporting, James Bamford exposes the inner workings of America’s largest, most secretive, and arguably most intrusive intelligence agency. The NSA offers long eluded open public scrutiny, but The Puzzle Palace penetrates its huge network of power and unmasks the individuals who control it, frequently with surprising disregard for the law. So delicate was the information uncovered that this agency twice attemptedto suppress the reserve, threatened the writer with prosecution, and even raided one of the libraries he used. This is a brilliant account of the utilization and abuse of technical espionage.