Permanent Record
Edward Snowden
5 mins
3 key insights
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In Permanent Record, Edward Snowden recounts his life as a hacker and top secret cybersecurity operative that led to his 2013 whistleblowing of illegal mass surveillance by the US government.
Permanent Record
Permanent Record
by Edward Snowden
Overview
In the United States, it's considered a federal crime to open someone else's mail. And yet everything you have ever seen, typed, or downloaded on a computer is visible – not just to hackers, but corporations that buy the data for advertising, as well as the government itself.
Edward Snowden is a computer intelligence expert and former contractor for the CIA and NSA, who once held maximum security clearances and helped design the data gathering systems used by intelligence agencies today. Snowden's exposure of illegal mass surveillance by the US government made him an enemy of the state who remains an international fugitive to this day.
Permanent Record is the whistleblower's definitive autobiography, taking us from his childhood to his work as an intelligence contractor, his motivations for going public, and his life in exile .
Favorite quote
The agencies were hiring tech companies to hire kids, and then they were giving them the keys to the kingdom, because - as Congress and the press were told - the agencies didn't have a choice. No one else knew how the keys, or the kingdom, worked.
- Edward Snowden
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