In an extract from his memoir, the US whistleblower shares his experiences on the day the twin towers fell – and the aftermath that led him to join up

Whenever I try to understand how the past two decades happened, I return to that September – to that ground-zero day and its immediate aftermath. To return means coming up against a truth darker than the lies that tied the Taliban to al-Qaeda and conjured up Saddam Hussein’s illusory stockpile of WMDs. It means, ultimately, confronting the fact that the carnage and abuses that marked my young adulthood were born not only in the executive branch and the intelligence agencies, but also in the hearts and minds of all Americans, myself included.

I started working as a web designer for a woman I met in community college class. She, or I guess her business, hired me under the table at the then lavish rate of $30 an hour in cash. The trick was how many hours I would actually get paid for.