Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach

Book excerpt: An eye-opening account of the perils of America’s techno-spy empire Ever since the earliest days of the Cold War, American intelligence agencies have launched spies in the sky, implanted spies in the ether, burrowed spies underground, sunk spies in the ocean, and even tried to control spies’ minds by chemical means. But these weren’t human spies. Instead, the United States expanded its reach around the globe through techno-spies. Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach investigates how America’s technophiles inadvertently created a global espionage empire: one based on technology, not land. Author Kristie Macrakis shows how in the process of staking out the globe through technology, US intelligence created the ability to collect a massive amount of data. But did it help? Featuring the sites visited during her research and stories of the people who created the techno-spy empire, Macrakis guides the reader from its conception in the 1950s to its global reach in the Cold War and Global War on Terror. In an age of ubiquitous technology, Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach exposes the perils of relying too much on technology while demonstrating how the US carried on the tradition of British imperial espionage. Readers interested in the history of espionage and technology as well as those who work in the intelligence field will find the revelations and insights in Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach fascinating and compelling.