The Watchdogs Didn't Bark takes a fact-based, character-driven approach to telling the shocking, previously unrevealed story of the NSA's failure to protect America on 9/11. Citing new insider testimony, the book explores how and why the world's most powerful and least understood intelligence agency failed to stay true to its most basic objective: protect the homeland from a Pearl Harbor style attack. No one was fired for 9/11, and many of the worst failures went on to play lead roles in running programs and operations utilized in the War on Terror.
Emanuel Stoakes and Ray Nowosielski examine for the first time this episode of America's secret history in full-detail, conveying the psychological imperative felt by NSA leadership, which was caught red-handed withholding actionable intelligence that could and should have saved nearly 3,000 lives, the unprecedented program embraced in secret under the direction of Vice President Dick Cheney to reclaim the agency's place in history, and the successful cover-up undertaken to preserve power long enough to ensure the secret initiative they had begun would be embraced and protected. The byzantine nature of the contemporary national security state and its push for less and less transparency and oversight can be clearly traced back to this formative episode. We have inherited the unchallenged legacy of this failure and continue to pay the price.
