‘Bottoms Up’ is one of the best books I’ve read this year—I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about this, except that it doesn’t fit neatly into an ideological category, which to my mind is a good thing. Kerry Howley explores the development of the digital national state since 9/11 and the whistleblowers who call it into question. How many of the secrets our government keeps are necessary, and how many are covering up deeds that the American people would never support? The person who has received the longest sentence in American history for espionage, Reality Winner’s story is at the center of this book; hers becomes a case study of what happens when you burden a twenty-something translator with work that she cannot talk about, despite the fact that it appeared to her that the American government was not safeguarding elections from Russian interference. The second half of the book goes into her arrest, trial, and treatment in great detail, and made me chagrined about what is being done in my name.