Permanent Record

Description

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. Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online―a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic. Title Page......Page 2 Dedication......Page 4 Preface......Page 5 Part One......Page 11 1. Looking Through the Window......Page 12 2. The Invisible Wall......Page 18 3. Beltway Boy......Page 28 4. American Online......Page 32 5. Hacking......Page 41 6. Incomplete......Page 49 7. 9/11......Page 55 8. 9/12......Page 61 9. X-Rays......Page 66 10. Cleared and in Love......Page 74 Part Two......Page 81 11. The System......Page 82 12. Homo contractus......Page 87 13. Indoc......Page 95 14. The Count of the Hill......Page 107 15. Geneva......Page 117 16. Tokyo......Page 128 17. Home on the Cloud......Page 146 18. On the Couch......Page 158 Part Three......Page 164 19. The Tunnel......Page 165 20. Heartbeat......Page 169 21. Whistleblowing......Page 175 22. Fourth Estate......Page 186 23. Read, Write, Execute......Page 196 24. Encrypt......Page 203 25. The Boy......Page 210 26. Hong Kong......Page 219 27. Moscow......Page 228 28. From the Diaries of Lindsay Mills......Page 238 29. Love and Exile......Page 248 Notes......Page 257 Acknowledgments......Page 258 About the Author......Page 260 Copyright......Page 263