Manasi Pritam
Nov 3 · 4 min read

Book Review: Edward Snowden’s Permanent Record

When I picked up Snowden’s Permanent Record, it was partly out of curiosity of cybersurveillance and partly because I wanted to know how one guy managed to dupe the NSA/CIA all by himself. I expected the book to be a personal account of his bravery, as the Oliver Stone film is, but as I read on I also couldn’t help but be amazed at all that he managed to understand and reveal about the Intelligence Community’s inner workings within a very short period of time. Nevertheless, as I approach the end, instead of being reassured that this is a win for transparency and accountability, I am afraid that he may have only scratched the surface and of the possibility that things may be even murkier and more complicated than they seem when it comes to cybersecurity.

A few important takeaways for me were how contractual private corporations play a huge role in public surveillance and intelligence in the US using the platform for personal profit, how techies with little to no background in security studies seem to be taking over Fort Mead in the aftermath of the chaos and confusion that the intelligence failure of 9/11 unleashed in the American intelligence community (at least while Snowden was there) and finally, for all its merits, how dangerous the shift from targeted surveillance to mass surveillance can be due to the depersonalisation of experience that the distance of the screen from the subject of surveillance provides.

The biggest revelation for me, though, was that Snowden is not an anarchist and not even a radical for that matter. This is most evident in his chapter ‘On the Couch’ where he delves into the debate surrounding privacy and how liberal democracies can approach it within the US constitutional framework. He comes from a background that is as American service class as it can get with the entire family either having served in the military or the state beauracracy. He constantly questions himself which at times makes one wonder- what does he even want, and whose side is he on? But, as one proceeds one realises that holding the government accountable for its actions does not mean you do not love your country. It means you also care about it, and that Snowden is just a guy standing in front of the government asking it to understand the public.

But jokes apart, I think he could use a lesson or two in social contract theory in order to enhance his understanding of the system’s structure and mechanisms. For all his brains, he ironically comes across as rather naive at times with regard to how he decided to take on an entire institution motivated at times by his conscience and at other times by compassion. To be clear, his fight is not against the system or surveillance per say but the way that it is conducted and the lack of a checks and balances arrangement on the workings of the American Intelligence Community.

Having said that I am a fan and think US Intelligence needed this jolt. The intelligence community is certainly proving that it can take it without being sinister in its approach that one would usually associate with the most powerful spy agency in the world. That the CIA has an instagram account now where it regularly posts about the “humans of CIA” in an attempt to reach out to the common man- a first by any Intelligence organisation- shows that it has been introspecting following the furore it has faced in the last two decades over its functioning. However, there is little hope for Snowden to acquire a passport again and he knows it. This does not mean all his efforts have gone in vain. If nothing else, Snowden’s intervention is leading to healthy debates on public surveillance because as he points out in one of his interviews- its not just data thats being exploited by the government enabled by private companies such as Google, Facebook, Skype, Apple, etc., its the common man who bears the ultimate brunt of irresponsible or inadequately thought out policies.

The question about whether he is a hero or a traitor has often been posed. The closest reference that immediately comes to my mind after reading Snowden’s Permanent Record is that of Nolan’s The Dark Knight. The book is highly engaging and well written with all the elements of a spy thriller- except this actually happened in real life and that the protagonist does not like his Martinis shaken or stirred because he is a teetotaller.