Permanent Record

October 3, 2019 4:17 PM - by Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down. In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it.
posted by holmesian (3 comments total)

I'm a little over halfway through and am stunned at how much detail he's revealing about the inner workings of the CIA and NSA. I know that he didn't run it by the government before it was published, but surely some of this is classified, right?
posted by holmesian at 4:18 PM on October 3, 2019

Re: IC review - that ship sailed. More exposure is just another consecutive life sentence. If the USG is ever questioned on the details, bet on a glomar response.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:25 PM on October 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

In an interview on NPR, the interviewer kept skying away from Snowden's sacrifice, not to mention his courage and his dedication to upholding the constitution, but the interviewer kept coming back to the idea that Snowden should just come on back home and face his "crimes" and be willing to serve time because wasn't Daniel Berrigan willing to do so, and didn't he think he should do so also? Total jive. Snowden kept re-iterating that he was absolutely willing to come back if and when he was guaranteed a fair trial, which of course will never, ever happen.

Snowden is one of the greatest US citizens of my lifetime -- he is brave, he is honest, he was/is willing to make huge personal sacrifice to make the US face what it has become, not to mention to show the world what the US has become. Snowden stands taller than any other I can think of. Absolute integrity. A hero.
posted by dancestoblue at 10:01 PM on October 6, 2019 [2 favorites]