Permanent Record

Summary

Permanent Record is a memoir that details Snowden's journey from growing up in a patriotic, government-oriented family to becoming a whistleblower who exposed the U.S. government's mass surveillance programs. The book provides insights into Snowden's personal life, his motivations, and the events that led him to leak classified documents, revealing the extent of the National Security Agency's (NSA) surveillance on American citizens and people around the world.

Snowden, learned how to program computers and hack things at an early age and after 9/11 he started to work as a contractor for intelligence agencies and got roped into the world of secret services. There he saw a world of mass surveillance. The NSA and CIA were gathering vast amounts of data about the citizens of the US and other countries, collecting their phone calls, emails and general online activity "just in case". He describes how the modern surveillance state is unlike anything ever seen before. It uses digital tools to track individuals constantly and collect the data they create to form a "permanent record" of everybody's activities.

Snowden warns that the erosion of privacy is a threat to democracy, as mass surveillance undermines personal freedom, autonomy, and the ability to dissent. Mass surveillance can be used for mass control. Right now the government might not be bad, but if it does get bad at some point the same tools can be used for suppression and control instead of ensuring citizen safety.

A society without privacy cannot be truly free. Yet, I think besides all of this, the NSA is working the same way as before, intertwining with US tech giants in order to gather everything about our lives. Nothing really changed, except that we now know for certain that they do.

In summary, Permanent Record is both a personal memoir and a political manifesto. It tells the story of a man who sacrificed his own freedom to reveal the scale of US government surveillance, aiming to spark a global conversation about privacy, security, and civil liberties. Through his experiences and reflections, Snowden emphasizes the importance of transparency, the ethical implications of surveillance technology, and the need for individuals to stand up for their rights in the face of growing government power.