A review by jorgjuar
Permanent Record by Edward Snowden
3.0
Good... and that's about it. After having read some of the other users' reviews, I noticed most of them refer to Snowden himself or his actions rather than the book. This is a review of the book.
Permanent Record is a sort of autobiographic book combined with the explanation of mass surveillance programs carried out by NSA and other state agencies, as well as the motivations that made Snowden to reveal such programs.
The first part is pretty much the autobiographical one, which, to be honest is somewhat boring. I do understand that E. Snowden, just like many other people, tries to find some sense of his adulthood by retrospectively looking into his childhood, convince himself of that, and then project that idea into the reader, but he could certainly made it way shorter. Anyway, as Chuck Palahniuk once said, "...every person is obsessed with himself.".
The rest of the book is what is mostly interesting (with some other exceptions here and there). E. Snowden explains in greater detail the inner workings and hierarchical tree within CIA as well as how he ended up finding the surveillance programs in question, how he managed to exfiltrate them, divulge them, and finally the response of lawmakers and tech world.
At some point, however, E. Snowden views on other countries depend on what they meant for his situation at the moment. For example, he states that many of the mass surveillance programs ended up in a profound distrust of the government, which, in turn, explains some of the rise of populism in different parts of the world; he's kind of right on this one. But later on the book, he refers to Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador as countries that "fight the US imperialism" inasmuch as they were potential asylum provider countries, however, he conveniently omits that those countries are also run by populists, bringing the same aftermaths that any other populist, regardless of the wing they belong to.
As a side note, given the jobs descriptions that E. Snowden actually did, it doesn't seem that he was really in charge of complex designs (not to confuse with operation) or blue team activities on a day-to-day basis, which at some point contradicts some of the statements he's given in other forums. It also caught my attention that he incorrectly describes basic tech acronyms (no wonder why in Sec forums such as DEFCON his knowledge is undermined).
In short, Permanent Record is a good book but no more than that. Given the importance of the mass surveillance programs and everything it involved, I'd recommend you to read it although you may want to read really quick the first part.
Permanent Record is a sort of autobiographic book combined with the explanation of mass surveillance programs carried out by NSA and other state agencies, as well as the motivations that made Snowden to reveal such programs.
The first part is pretty much the autobiographical one, which, to be honest is somewhat boring. I do understand that E. Snowden, just like many other people, tries to find some sense of his adulthood by retrospectively looking into his childhood, convince himself of that, and then project that idea into the reader, but he could certainly made it way shorter. Anyway, as Chuck Palahniuk once said, "...every person is obsessed with himself.".
The rest of the book is what is mostly interesting (with some other exceptions here and there). E. Snowden explains in greater detail the inner workings and hierarchical tree within CIA as well as how he ended up finding the surveillance programs in question, how he managed to exfiltrate them, divulge them, and finally the response of lawmakers and tech world.
At some point, however, E. Snowden views on other countries depend on what they meant for his situation at the moment. For example, he states that many of the mass surveillance programs ended up in a profound distrust of the government, which, in turn, explains some of the rise of populism in different parts of the world; he's kind of right on this one. But later on the book, he refers to Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador as countries that "fight the US imperialism" inasmuch as they were potential asylum provider countries, however, he conveniently omits that those countries are also run by populists, bringing the same aftermaths that any other populist, regardless of the wing they belong to.
As a side note, given the jobs descriptions that E. Snowden actually did, it doesn't seem that he was really in charge of complex designs (not to confuse with operation) or blue team activities on a day-to-day basis, which at some point contradicts some of the statements he's given in other forums. It also caught my attention that he incorrectly describes basic tech acronyms (no wonder why in Sec forums such as DEFCON his knowledge is undermined).
In short, Permanent Record is a good book but no more than that. Given the importance of the mass surveillance programs and everything it involved, I'd recommend you to read it although you may want to read really quick the first part.