"A strident and impermissable effort to second-guess the wisdom of the FBI. . . . A potpourri of conjecture, supposition, innuendo and surmise."--from the FBI's court documents "Jon Wiener has put together a remarkable compilation of documents. I know of no keener annotations to any documents illustrating government surveillance. Wiener's commentary is as sprightly as the documents are foolish. He is thorough, appropriately droll at times, and rightly focused on the question of whether the FBI and the CIA were keeping to their lawful mandates during the years of abandon and evasion."--Todd Gitlin author of "The Sixties" "The book sheds light on many issues far broader than John Lennon--the Nixon administration for example, and, not less importantly, the particular machinations of Clinton, Blair, and other current world leaders. Very few people know how the process of seeking and retrieving documents supposedly available under the Freedom of Information Act really works; Wiener's book makes this all very clear."--Eric Foner, Columbia University "A classic case study. There is humor here and mystery, too. But most of all, there is hard evidence--in the FBI's own words--of what happens when government substitutes paranoia for law." --Floyd Abrams