Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State

You are being surveilled right now. This “startling exposé” (The Economist) reveals how the U. S. government allied with data brokers, tech companies, and advertisers to monitor us through the phones we carry and the devices in our home. “A revealing... startling... timely... fascinating, sometimes terrifying examination of the decline of privacy in the digital age.”—Kirkus Reviews SHORTLISTED FOR THE SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS AWARD “That evening, I was given a glimpse inside a hidden world… An entirely new kind of surveillance program—one designed to track everyone.” For the past five years—ever since a chance encounter at a dinner party—journalistByron Tau has been piecing together a secret story: how the whole of the internet and every digital device in the world became a mechanism of intelligence, surveillance, and monitoring. Of course, our modern world is awash in surveillance. Most of us are dimly aware of this: Ever get the sense that an ad is “following” you around the internet But the true potential of our phones, computers, homes, credit cards, and even the tires underneath our cars to reveal our habits and behavior would astonish most citizens. All of this surveillance has produced an extraordinary amount of valuable data about every one of us. That data is for sale—and the biggest customer is the U. S. government. In the years after 9/11, the U. S.