04-05-20

Permanent Record,by Edward Snowden, Metropolitan Books, 2019, 339 pages

For those of you who believe in personal liberty and the guaranteed protections of the U.S. Constitution, Snowden’s book is a must read. He faithfully relates his biography, but much of it reads like a mystery, and it is apolitical.

Due to his programming savvy and patriotic philosophy Snowden quickly rose through the ranks of “IC” (intelligence community) computer experts to become a top computer officer at the CIA, then as a contracted high level technology worker with the NSA.

At the NSA he eventually discovered massive surveillance programs such as STELLARWIND, XKEYSCORE, which had been steadily gathering information on every citizen of the U.S., including Congressmen and Supreme Court justices. These secret programs had a searchable record of every Email, every key stroke, every website visited, all biographical information, all financial records, and every phone call on every single citizen, despite strict 4th Amendment prohibitions of such practices. By 2013 Snowden had gradually become incredulous and disillusioned, and soon realized he either had to continue on facilitating such criminal activity, or to become a whistleblower in the mold of William Binney, Kirk Wiebe, Edward Loomis, and Thomas Drake.

He decided to copy and later reveal thousands of pertinent documents. At that point he knew he had to leave the country. From Hong Kong he contacted journalists such as Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill. The documents he provided them were published in the The Guardian, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, the New York Times, and others. His aim was to travel to Ecuador for asylum, but was waylaid in Moscow en route, and remains there today under Russian asylum protection.

The autobiography is an excellent prequel, if you will, to Poitras’ excellent documentary, Citizenfour, and the first rate film by Oliver Stone, Snowden. But there is ample information in this volume that every American ought to be aware of.

~Doc
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