Amy Zegart: Spies, Lies, and Algorithms

The author of Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11, Amy Zegart, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, argues that the digital age has made intelligence gathering vastly more difficult. Agencies once concentrated on foreign governments and terrorists, but today, they also must understand American tech giants—and how malign actors can use our own inventions against us. The National Security Agency faces competition from Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon; and Twitter and Facebook have become disinformation highways. In explaining the role, operation, and limitations of intelligence organizations, Zegart offers an unsettling proposition: In the wireless 21st century world, espionage, sabotage, and brainwashing are no longer the province of government agencies; nearly anyone with an internet connection can do it.