The Devil Inside the Beltway: The Extraordinary Story of Cyber Security, Civil Rights, and the US Government's Extortion of a Small Business Owner

by Michael J. Daugherty

Overview

"THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN WATCHING YOUR WORKSTATION LONGER THAN YOU THINK." Small business owner Michael J. Daugherty is fighting back against US Government's sinister surveillance tactics in his book, The Devil Inside the Beltway: The Shocking Expose of the US Government's Surveillance and Overreach into Cybersecurity, Medicine, and Small Business. During the past decade the US Government has teamed with private enterprise and academia to attack American small business by surveilling networks and picking up Americans' files they considered to be "shared" and "vulnerable". They used that information to expand and grow more than one government agency. Michael J. Daugherty, the small business owner who created LabMD, a cancer detection center in Atlanta, Georgia, became a victim of these governmental practices. What began with the unauthorized but government-funded procurement of medical data for 9000+ patients from his medical laboratory turned into a government supported, financially draining, extortion attempt. Taking you inside his five-year journey of government power grabs and intimidation tactics, Daugherty backs his riveting true story with engaging detail, including Congressional testimony, press releases, e-mails, letters and FOIA documents. But for the fact that everything in the book really happened, it reads like a brilliant political thriller. The cronies, lawyers, politicians and bullies...they are all right here in this stinging indictment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780985742225
Publisher:	Broadland Press
Publication date:	09/24/2013
Edition description:	SOFTCOVER
Pages:	504
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.12(d)

Editorial Reviews

2013-11-22
Small-business owner Daugherty, in his debut, recounts how he uncovered shady practices going on behind closed government doors. In May 2008, several years before government surveillance became an explosive issue in America, everything was going well at an Atlanta cancer-detection facility that the author started 12 years before. Then he received a call from someone at a data security firm who claimed to have his patients' confidential medical data. What initially seemed like extortion turned out to be part of an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission--and Daugherty began to realize that there were forces at work beyond his control. Using emails, letters, cited sources, extensive research and data, the author explains how he eventually uncovered a relationship between the FTC and various private security firms, who, instead of trying to stop malware that preys on private information, instead attack small businesses--the malware's victims--for security failures. Daugherty's story is harrowing and hard to ignore: Orwellian in its exploration of government overreach and lawyer doublespeak and Kafkaesque in its nightmarish depiction of innocent citizens falsely accused. Daugherty has clearly done his research, and he skillfully explains the political processes that he believes lie at the heart of the FTC's questionable practices. At times, the book reads like an engaging thriller, but it also drags at points and, overall, may be too long for its own good. Some readers may wish that the author were less concerned with minutiae, or eased up on some of the more hard-line anti-establishment rhetoric; if the book were tighter and more streamlined, it might have been far greater. That said, as it stands, it's an effective and frightening cautionary tale. A true story of a businessman's struggle in the digital information age.

Kirkus Reviews