by Tim Weiner
First published 2012
Tim Weiner reveals the FBI's hidden role as America's primary intelligence agency. The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner traces how presidents weaponized the Bureau's surveillance powers across a century of covert operations. Weiner shows the FBI targeting terrorists, foreign spies, and domestic dissidents while sometimes clashing with the very presidents who deployed them. The Bureau's secret methods created an ongoing battle between national security imperatives and constitutional freedoms. This conflict has tested the foundations of American democracy for generations. Weiner documents how the FBI's intelligence mission superseded its public role as a law enforcement agency. The book chronicles America's internal war on perceived threats and the price of that perpetual vigilance. Readers discover how surveillance techniques evolved and expanded presidential power while threatening civil liberties.
Genres: 20th-century, political-science, politics, non-fiction, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers
Period: 20th-Century, 21st-Century
537 pages · Hardcover · Random House