Andrew Fowler is an award-winning investigative journalist and a former reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Foreign Correspondent and its premier investigative TV documentary programme, Four Corners. Andrew began his journalism career in the early 1970s, covering the IRA bombing campaign for the London Evening News. He first interviewed Julian Assange for Foreign Correspondent in early 2010 and went on to write the bestselling book, The Most Dangerous Man in the World (Melbourne University Press, 2011) which has been translated and published in countries as diverse as China, South Korea, the USA, Russia, Indonesia, Romania and Taiwan.

• Introduction: Welcome to the Machine 1. An Island of Hope 2. Heart of Darkness 3. Spin and Deception 4. The Truth Teller 5. An Untimely Collapse 6. Shielding the Source 7. Spies, Lies and US Industries 8. Truth to Power 9. The Clamp Down 10. The Chilling Effect 11. Too much Information 12. Whose Side Are You On? 13. Shooting the Messenger

Ironies abound in this disturbing analysis of how western governments are clamping down on media freedoms and using dragnet surveillance to amass data on every one of us. Andrew Fowler neatly summarises, "New laws are now being shaped, both in the US and elsewhere, to make illegal that which had been normal journalistic practice; to make legal the activities of intelligence agencies which had previously been outlawed" Perhaps the biggest irony is the role played by right-wing elements of the media who endorse these draconian invasions of privacy and restrictions on freedom of expression in the name of national security. Fowler convincingly argues that journalism that speaks truth to power and democracy itself could be imperilled if we allow our governments free rein to stifle signs of dissent. The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, June 2018