A review by gianouts
Permanent Record by Edward Snowden
5.0
I felt some nostalgia at the beginning of the book with discussion of the emergence of personal computers and the Internet of the 1990s.
I found it to be a very engaging story about Edward's life, the emotions and moral dilemnas he confronted, and the Intelligence Community (IC).
I was surprised to read that so much of the IC in the US is outsourced to organisations or contractors.
I was aware that there was and is a significant amount of surveillance capability, but it was interesting to have some of it confirmed and hear about the extent of this capability and importance of metadata over content.
The challenges of releasing the information and being credible whilst maintaining anonymity was an interesting read.
Reading about the power of XKEYSTORE to search nearly everything a user does in the Internet was mind-blowing; thoughts of Big Brother in George Oswell's 1984 came to mind.
I am amazed by Edward's courage to speak up despite knowing that there would be significant consequences to his life.
I found it to be a very engaging story about Edward's life, the emotions and moral dilemnas he confronted, and the Intelligence Community (IC).
I was surprised to read that so much of the IC in the US is outsourced to organisations or contractors.
I was aware that there was and is a significant amount of surveillance capability, but it was interesting to have some of it confirmed and hear about the extent of this capability and importance of metadata over content.
The challenges of releasing the information and being credible whilst maintaining anonymity was an interesting read.
Reading about the power of XKEYSTORE to search nearly everything a user does in the Internet was mind-blowing; thoughts of Big Brother in George Oswell's 1984 came to mind.
I am amazed by Edward's courage to speak up despite knowing that there would be significant consequences to his life.