The following is excerpted from the closing chapter of I Am Not Your Enemy: A Memoir, out September 16 from Spiegel & Grau. It is reprinted with permission of the publisher, © 2025.
I have to be careful about what I say. My plea bargain is stricter than the rules under which I lived within barbed wire. Before I went on 60 Minutes, I reached out to my old friends at the NSA to understand how the prepublication process I would have to follow works, since they have the right to review everything I publish, including this book. It turns out that the rules are extremely vague, with sweeping language like “anything related to classified information.” To my surprise, the NSA agents were friendly and helpful. We went back and forth over a document of about thirty talking points that ranged from my career in the air force to my brief time as a contractor. One of the statements was something like, “There was a war in Afghanistan. The United States was involved.” They cleared that.
The NSA prepublication review agent called me several times and finally requested—should I be willing and have the time—that I meet with her and an associate with the NSA, “to discuss the matter” (my felony).
