I had to cut this interview so I'm going to post the original, longer version here

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I have had the great pleasure in recent weeks of interviewing by e-mail

fascinating authors, including some of my favorite writers. In the coming weeks

I will be posting interviews with Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Toby

Young, among others.

Today I want to share my interview with Bill Katovsky, author of the new book, Patriots Act: Voices of Dissent and the Risk of Speaking Out;  and Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq.

Patriots Act is an engrossing oral history of whistleblowers, dissenters and others

whose actions and stories are truly captivating.

This is recommended reading for anyone curious about what is really going on in society and, especially, behind the closed doors of government agencies where whistleblowing is treated as an act of treason rather than one of patriotism.

My thanks to the author for agreeing to the interview and not being put off by my initial questions where I decided to take a devils advocate position, asking the questions I figured some conservative readers here would ask.

I could say more but since its an oral history it seemed logical to let Katovsky do more of the talking.

What made you decide to write this book when some would say plenty has already been written about the problems caused by the Patriot Act?

Actually, the book has little to do or say about the Patriot Act itself, but with how patriots should and must act, and why dissent must not be conflated with disloyalty. I used the term Patriots Act as the book title in an attempt to be timely, ironic, and tap into the emotional and political zeitgeist. The Patriot Act that was passed into law (and renewed)  is an acronym for Providing Appropriate Tools for Responding, Intercepting, and Obstructing Terrorism. Leave it to the government to come up with something marketable and euphemistic like this. Its an Orwellian term, because those on Capitol Hill who opposed it were branded as being unpatriotic and un-American. Challenging the post-9/11 White House mindset that said "you are either with us or against us" represents the core thesis of my book. I wanted to interview Americans from all walks of life who dared to speak out at the risk of suffering reprisal.

Many of the books interviewees had nothing whatsoever to do with the "anti-terror" legislation that was recklessly shoehorned into law right after 9/11.  But, they were all patriots for defending free speech and their right to dissent.  For example, I interviewed a young couple from Texas who were arrested for simply wearing anti-Bush t-shirts at a Fourth of July event in Charleston, West Virginia where the President was attending. I also interviewed federal whistleblowers like former FBI agent Coleen Rowley who wrote a memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller that lambasted pre-9/11 agency failures. Perhaps the terrorists attacks could have been prevented had the FBI reacted properly to critical intelligence it had, but it refused to do so, and yet, Mueller and the FBI tried to whitewash the truth after the fact. Rowleys memo later made  the cover of Time magazine--and she was named Person of the Year in 2003.  Other ..> ..>
interview subjects included Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in the early 70s to stop the Vietnam War; and he urges Bush Administration officials  to also step forward and tell the truth about the lies and distortions that surround the Iraq War.


While you mention you interview the different people in the book, it reads more like an introduction and then they just write or talk for several pages. How did that work logistically?

First of all, this book is an oral history, which means I do extensive research on every person before I talk to them. A taped interview usually lasts anywhere between two and six hours. It depends on the subject matter and available time for the interviewee.  I then have the interview transcribed, and this is where the labor-intensive work comes into play: editing what they say so that the narrative flows smoothly and offers an emotional, personal arc. I go over the draft many, many times. For example, my interview with Yahoo News solo war journalist Kevin Sites produced about 30,000 words; and I whittled that down to about 12,000. It takes a lot of time and line-by-line editing, because I always try to maintain the interviewees voice.  I also devote a lot of time writing the introduction for each person, because I think that it is important for the reader to have a context of why this person is included in the book.

I need to make one thing clear-- the interviewees do NOT write anything unless I am quoting from a book or article they wrote. Patriots Act is an oral history. Im like a word-sculptor chipping away at this large block of stone, hoping to carve their life stories into a marble statue. Or, as I sometimes joke, I feel like I'm only a big ear with a tape recorder. ..> ..>


Some will criticize any book like this as liberal propaganda. What is your response to that assertion?

Interesting you mention this because there are about a half-dozen Republicans/conservatives featured in the book. Which is little more than one-quarter of all interviews.  I do not defend the Bush administration in this book. How can I when I had interviewed people like Paul Krugman, Paul Hackett, and Randi Rhodes. But I dont ever see liberals  criticizing conservatives for being unpatriotic or un-American. The verbal abuse and invective usually comes from the other side--the right. Just listen to Fox News, Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh for a few minutes on any given day.

The book is propaganda for defending those who dissent. I am not ashamed of this. In a political era when any criticism of the war in Iraq is immediately attacked as helping the enemy, then we are indeed entering perilous times. In the costly and futile fight to export democracy abroad, we are only eroding democracy on our native soil. And which political party is truly addressing this constitutional crisis? Even the big media players like the New York Times and Washington Post are cowed into submission by the strong-arm tactics of the White House and its fierce apologists.  And when the Times does break a major story like illegal domestic wiretapping, what happens next? It gets attacked by those on the right for supposedly endangering national security. Something is indeed wrong with the picture when dissent is suppressed, when legitimate opposition is attacked, and when self-censorship by the non-adversarial media is the norm.

The White House has been effective in exploiting post-9/11 fear for political gain, and this partisan saber-rattling continues despite dwindling approval ratings for Bush.  That is why many people are afraid to speak out. Politicians are especially nervous about walking the electoral tightrope  Meanwhile, Democrats have been wrongly castigated and singled out.  One striking example is former ..> ..> U.S. Senator Max Cleland (D-Georgia) whom I interviewed for the book. Cleland lost his re-election in 2002 because his opponent  questioned his patriotism after Cleland voted against an amendment of the pending Homeland Security Department bill which was still in committee. Now theres a few things you need to remember about Cleland: hes a triple-amputee Vietnam war vet; former director of the Veterans Administration; and Senator John McCain called him the greatest American hero hes ever known. Yet his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss, who had sat out the Vietnam War with a bum knee, nonetheless had the utter audacity to run a television ad comparing Cleland to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. As Cleland told me, There is no manners left in politics anymore. I think hes right.


You seem to go out of your way in the introduction to note that at least one person featured the military guy who talked to the Los Angeles Times was Republican. But it still reads like most of the people interviewed were Democrats. Am I mistaken in that assertion? 

Generally speaking, the book is weighted to the left, but I suggest people--if they actually buy or read the bookto especially look at the following chapters to see that political labels are often irrelevant. For example, a New Mexico cattle rancher, Tweeti Blancett,  was GOP county chairman for the first  President Bush in 1992. Yet when she went after big oil and gas for destroying the environment and making it impossible for her to raise cattle, she was shunned by the GOP. The current Bush Administration wont listen to her complaints. The Interior Department snubbed her. So whats she now doing? Shes suing the Bureau of Land Management.  As she told me, Im persona non grata now with the Bush people.  Another chapter is my interview with former U.S. National Park Police chief Theresa Chambers who was fired after speaking to the Washington Post about budget and staffing shortfalls. She is also a Republican. Then theres Cincinnati attorney and Marine Paul Hackett, who voted for Perot in 1992, but when he came back from Iraq, he decided to run for Congress in a special election as a fighting Democrat.  He nearly won, then decided to run several months later for a seat in the ..> ..> U.S. Senate, but his campaign was undermined by senior-level Democratic Party officials who supported another candidate. Hackett felt horribly betrayed by the Democratic Party.  Finally, former FBI agent Coleen Rowley voted for Bush in 2000!  Yet, she's now running for Congress as a Democrat. The political landscape is changing, and conventional Democrat and Republican partisan labels might not be so apt in a few years. Everyone seems to be holding their breath whether a truly viable third-party can finally emerge, take hold, and really stick this time. Imagine a third-party presidential candidate winning the 2008 election. Dissent transcends the partisan and ideological divide.

I think my favorite interview was with Randi Rhodes. Which was your favorite?

I like them all, but one of the most timely ones, especially right now, is the one I conducted with former FAA counter-terror expert Bogdan Dzakovic. For many years, Bogdan was on the front lines of battling aviation terrorism. He had been a federal air marshal before being selected to head up the FAA's Red Team--its most elite counter-terror unit. The Red Team conducted mock undercover raids as terrorists and hijackers. It probed vulnerable areas inside airports. With surprising ease and frequency during routine tests, members of his team slipped bombs, guns and knives onto aircraft. Then, several days after Sept. 11, 2001, the FAA grounded the Red Team, apparently because it didn't want to be embarrassed by the team's findings. Dzakovic disagreed with this shameless attempt to bury the truth. And so he took the bold step of filing a whistle-blower disclosure  But instead of rewarding Dzakovic for stepping forward, the newly formed Transportation Security Administration, which had swallowed the FAA, punished him by reassigning him to an entry-level clerical position behind a desk. As of 2006, he's still doing entry-level work. But last summer, he voiced this chilling prediction to me during one of our interviews for the book. He said, "If I were a terrorist mastermind plotting another big attack, and I could muster up another 20 guys, I'd scatter them around to different airports around the country. I would give each one of them three bombs and three different sets of luggage. Some of those bombs will make it onto flights." His hypothetical scenario bears some similarity to what the British Islamic terrorists were hoping to achieve, even though they planned to bomb aircraft over the Atlantic ocean.  We should all be grateful that the plot was foiled by good law enforcement work by British intelligence. ..> ..>
  
Was there anyone you wanted to interview that turned you down?

There was a few who were either too busy or were working on their own books. But I would say that most people said yes. I wanted to interview many more people--theres 22 interviews in the book--but I was under deadline and space restrictions. (In my first book, Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq, which was also an oral history, theres 60 interviews but they are much shorter in length on the average. In that book, my batting average was a bit lower--more like seven out of ten people contacted agreed to talk; even the New York Times Judy Miller initially said yes, that is, until her life was turned upside down.)


How do you define patriot?

 I will cite Edward Abbey who I quoted in the books epigraph: A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against the country. Another way to voice this belief comes from John Sellers, who is featured in my book and is the director of the grass-roots organization known as the Ruckus Society. He is active on many non-violent civil disobedience fronts; in fact, hes been arrested dozens of times for staging highly creative, media-friendly demonstrations or direct actions.  He told me, The people who leave the United States to go fight in our wars are often seen as patriots and heroes. While this is certainly true, Ive felt for a long time that you dont have to kill to fight for your country. You dont have to leave the borders of your country to fight for your country. In fact, the people I have the greatest respect for are people who nonviolently fight for the heart and soul of this country from within its borders. They stay here and fight for democracy in the United States, because we now live in a country that is ruled by unaccountable corporations that are buying up our elected officials and are literally buying up election day itself. All of this corruption to our democracy is going on unfettered. There is a tremendous amount to lose if we allow our democracy to continue being undermined and corrupted. And so, I think the true patriots are here within our borders fighting for the promise of America. They are doing it creatively and nonviolently, exposing themselves to incredible repression and violence to fight for the true ideals of democracy that can and should exist in this ..> ..> countrybut dont.

What made you decide to do this book - as well as Embedded - as oral histories versus printing interview excerpts or essays?

Hearing someone talk about his or life is utterly fascinating. Its like sitting around a campfire.  Other times, one almost feels like a shrink as the interviewee reveals things he or she might not necessarily divulge in their professional capacity as say, a war reporter. There can be a baring of the soul, a glimpse into their private world, a letting down of the guard.  For example, former CBS Weekend News anchor John Roberts who is now at CNN, said this to me after Embedded came out--he covered the early part of the ground war in Iraq, I was surprised to read in the book the things I said.  What he means is that in our interview he talked about the personal impact of seeing a bombed vehicle filled with the charred remains of Iraqi soldiers; he described a very disturbing scene--details of which would never have made the evening news.  He talked about his feelings--which is a rarity for people in the media.

Also, there is personal connection, albeit a short-lived one, when I am interviewing someone for an oral history. Editing interview excerpts or essays as an anthology would deprive me of this pleasurable and challenging pursuit of shaping someone's personal narrative. An oral  history is, in essence, an interview without the questions there for the reader to see. But the questions do shape the narrative. Also, when I put together an oral history, its my intent to recede into the background.


Would I be correct in assuming Studs Terkel, one of the best practitioners of oral histories, was an influence? Who are some of the other influences on your writings?

Absolutely, I am in great debt to Studs. I was introduced to him as a freshman at the University of Michigan in 1975. I read Working straight through Thanksgiving weekend. I had never read something of that breadth before.  I wasnt a journalist then. But his brand of reportage influenced me greatly. It just took awhile to germinate. I later went to Berkeley for  grad school in political science. While there, I read Oriana Fallacis Interviews with History, which made me  realize how much skill and insight are required to really get to the soul of one's interview subject. Shes the best in the game at this. The gold standard. I recommend anyone interested in interviewing a public figure to read her interview with then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger under Nixon.  Listening to him talk, she wrote in her intro, is like a dull rain hitting the roof.   She made Kissinger disclose how much he thought Nixon depended on him for his expertise on global issues; he compared himself to a Western gunslinger, the man in the white cowboy hat. The net effect of her interview--it first appeared in The New Republic--was twofold: Nixon was furious with Kissinger; and the interview became a major media event.

I should add that my first book, Embedded, did have one interview which became a mini-media event. It was the interview with New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns (it was conducted not by me, but by my colleague Timothy Carlson in Baghdad). In it, Burns criticized his brethren in the press for paying bribes to Saddams ministers and secret police for special access.  This chapter shot around the world overnight--from Drudge to excerpts in the Wall Street Journal to many radio interviews. (The interview can easily be found via Google; many bloggers have reprinted parts of it online.)

Sorry for the digression. What I am trying to say is never underestimate the power of the word vis a vis a moving image, like those you see on television or now on the web.  Just like a single photo, words can sear into the public consciousness.  They become a fixed reference point.  Journalism, they say, is the first draft of history. I consider oral history its second draft.

As for as other influences on my writing, I am pretty much an omnivore--history, politics, contemporary fiction, literary criticism, psychology. Magazines and newspapers that I regularly devour are The New Yorker, Harpers, Commentary, New York Observer, Granta, The New Republic, New York Times, etc.   What also helps me in the interview game is listening to thought-provoking, late-night feature-length interviews and talks on NPRChristophers Lydons Open Source, The World Council of Affairs, Commonwealth Club lectures, and  City Arts and Lectureswhich my local San Francisco station KQED regularly broadcasts.  I stay away from the rowdy gabfests on television.

Finally, one useful trick I found in conducting interviews is not to jump right in with provocative questions, like the fearless Fallaci (it takes a rare constitution to do that), but ease into the conversation. Ask non-threatening, personal or biographical questions at first. Let the subjects tell their story. Dont strive for those gotcha moments that TV reporters like doing.  An oral history is all about establishing trust, empathy and rapport, This is what Studs did so well. He was never one to score points, and as a result, people felt comfortable telling him their life stories. That is why he is the giant of this genre, and why we all toil in his shadow.


How has the reaction been to this book? Any reprisals against any of the people featured in the book?

Patriots Act is getting some traction with reviewers, but not the attention I thought it would get in the blogosphere. Its been completely ignored by the Daily Kos crowd, even though a personal copy was given to its founder. Four chapters, however, were excerpted on Salon; and as a result of the book falling into the hands of Arianna Huffington, I was asked to blog for her site--which I have been doing since May.  But, I thought the book would be attacked by the right; it hasnt. I have no theories on why not. It baffles me, to be quite honest. I had the publisher send copies to many of the conservative talk show hosts and columnists.  All I can is that the media is an unpredictable world, and a lot like Alice in Wonderland. Right-wing talk show host Michael Savage wrote back when he was contacted, saying, Dont bother me. Take me off your mailing list. The book is filled with the usual liberal suspects.   Last month, however, he read a chapter excerpt from Patriots Act which had appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was the excerpt concerning the former Red Team counter-terror expert with the FAA who criticized aviation security. The next day, Savage had the Red Team expert on his show for a half-hour. And yes, the former Red Team expert did suffer reprisals at work after the book came out.

You seem to be suggesting, in this book, that whistleblowing  = dissent = patriotic act. Apologies for the oversimplification, but is that a fair summary?  Is whistleblowing always a good thing or are there cases - for example of national security or confidential information - where it's not appropriate?

When lives are in danger when someone is not blowing the whistle, then its not patriotic to keep silent. Lets take the case of Abu Ghraib. Do you think the government would have stepped forward publicly with the allegations and photos had not Seymour Hersh forced them to do so in the pages of New Yorker?  The military sat on  this scandal for months. Wouldnt many lives have been saved if folks in the Pentagon and CIA stepped forward before the start of the Iraq War and said,  There are no weapons of mass destruction.  Or that there is no terrorist link between Saddam and 9/11.  Daniel Ellsberg eloquently made this point to me in Patriots Act. It took him nearly two years to gather the courage to release the Pentagon Papers which detailed how the U.S. government lied about Vietnam.  He says that he should have acted much sooner.  He then goes onto say that Richard Clarke should have told the public what he knew about Al Qaeda, Iraq, etc while he was still the White House counter-terrorist advisor--and not afterwards in his best-selling book. By then, it was too late.

With regard to the importance of whistleblowing, I strongly recommend a visit to the web site of the Project on  Government Oversight  (www.pogo.org), which makes for sober reading about the many brave government officials who stepped forward with stories about waste, fraud, and malfeasance--and usually what happens is that they then get fired, demoted, or even criminally prosecuted.   In a government built around lies and secrecy, shouldn't the American public be at least owed the truth? And where does the truth emerge? From scripted press conferences by the administration in the Rose Garden? From a compliant media?  Via the Sunday talk shows? Fox News? Wall Street Journal? Or even the New York Times which championed all those never-to-be found weapons of mass destructions sites in Iraq?  It remains to be seen how much influence bloggers will have in this arena of reporting the news, or at least offering a necessary counterweight.  But look at what happened the other week--the doctored Reuters photo from Lebanon that was discovered by a sharp-eyed blogger at Little Green Footballs. There is an erosion of trust with the media and government.

Yet I will say, if there are times when lives are at stake, then its prudent for a whistleblower to keep his or her powder dry.  I am not one to judge how or when this is the case. But after interviewing several prominent whistleblowers for my book, I have come to the sad conclusion that the government is often allergic to the truth for reasons of careerism, special-interest politics, and a contempt for the welfare of the common individual. I hate to come off sounding so sour or cynical, so I will end with this quote from Benjamin Franklin who I quoted in my book: Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

What is your next project going to be?

Good question. I wish I could give you a definite answer. I am toying with several book ideas that are still percolating.  I dont know if it will be another oral history. What I'd really like to do is walk/run down the California Coast, from San Francisco to San Diego--and write a book about the experience. One sits on one butt for far too many hours editing and writing a 300-page oral history. Perhaps I will collect stories from strangers as I slowly make my way by foot down Highway One.

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More information about the author and the book is available at a site for the book

website--www.patriotsactbook.com