V. James Bamford is an American bestselling author and journalist widely noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency. He was born on September 15, 1946 and raised in Natick, Massachusetts. He spent three years in the United States Navy as an intelligence analyst during the Vietnam War, and used the GI Bill to earn his law degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts. James Bamford is an expert on the highly secretive National Security Agency. His recent book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11... to The Eavesdropping on America, on which NOVA's "The Spy Factory" was based became a New York Times best-seller and was named by The Washington Post as one of "The Best Books of 2008." It is third in a trilogy by Bamford on the NSA, following The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets , also a New York Times bestseller. Bamford has also taught at the University of California, Berkeley as a distinguished visiting professor and has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Harpers, and many other publications.
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