Digital Fortress.

'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?'

'Who will guard the guards?'

 This Dan Brown's first thriller was published in 1998, when the internet was just introduced and quickly becoming part of the daily life in homes and offices. The new frontier of communication became the useful tool for connecting people instantly around the world. Any people were able take the advantage of the technology and It was the National Security Agency's duty to gather the information of terrorism and provide the intel to the other law enforcements and secret agencies. The story is about the cryptologists who work for the agency and have authority to break in any encrypted emails under suspicion of the national security matter. Using the most advanced code breaking machine, the agents are on duty of operating the electrical surveillance of the citizen, with the purpose of protecting the citizen. The story arise by formal cryptologist holding the NSA as a hostage, not by guns or bombs, but by a code so ingeniously complex called the Digital fortress. Even in these days, electrical surveillance is a very controversial topic. It's clearly for the purpose of the good, but also clearly a breach of civil liberty at the same time.