Book Review: "Permanent Record"

"Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden is his autobiography covering most of his life, from his early childhood up to his present exile in Russia. I think it's an important book as it provides a lot of the background to who Ed is, and I think it's a meaningful book because it covers Ed's own reasons for leaking the documents he's famous for. I was first made aware of the book when the US government sued Edward Snowden over it's publication, in an attempt to stop him from generating any revenue from the book, however it seemed to have had a Streisand effect. I finally listened to the book after hearing Snowden on the Joe Rogan podcast, which I link at the end. That was pretty moving, so I wanted to get the full story and picked up the book shortly after. I listened to the book on Audible at ~$20 for 11.5 hours (350 pages), which felt pretty long for the actual content I got out of it. I'll be honest, I didn't really like it, I give it 5 out of 10 stars. It's mostly a biography on Edward Snowden and it felt like I just spent hours listening to details that did not capture my interest. Granted it was awesome to see how he developed and how his motivations are more in line with traditional whistle blowers, like Daniel Ellsberg. I recommend it to those looking to get his full back story, so they can determine the type of person he was and his motivations for leaking these documents. For most others I actually recommend the podcast at the end, as it is much shorter and I think he conveys most of the major points of the book in there. Don't get me wrong, I think what he did was monumental and very important for uncovering some corruption, and he did it in a fairly tactful manner. Further I believe he did it at great personal sacrifice, because he believes in these things and for the good of the American public. I was just hard for the book to capture my attention for long because it was literally his life story. So much of the book focused on Snowden's personal life, his young adulthood and first jobs related to security, essentially the full story of how he got into the position he was in. But frankly, that wasn't that interesting of a story. The book is divided into three parts, the first part focusing on Snowden's early life, the second part focusing on Snowden's life in the IC (intel community), and the last part of the book focused around Snowden actively deciding to exfiltrate documents, flee the country, and coordinate disclosure with journalists. The thirst part of the book is by far the most interesting, which is unfortunate because readers may get bored during the first two parts of the book. The following are the chapters of the book, in my typical fashion:

Preface
Part One
Chapter 1: Through The Window
Chapter 2: The Invisible Wall
Chapter 3: Beltway Boy
Chapter 4: America Online
Chapter 5: Hacking
Chapter 6: Incomplete
Chapter 7: 9/11
Chapter 8: 9/12
Chapter 9: X-Rays 
Chapter 10: Cleared and in Love
Part Two
Chapter 11: The System
Chapter 12: Homo contractus
Chapter 13: Indoc
Chapter 14: The Count of the Hill
Chapter 15: Geneva
Chapter 16: Tokyo
Chapter 17: Home on the Cloud
Chapter 18: On the Couch
Part Three
Chapter 19: The Tunnel
Chapter 20: Heartbeat
Chapter 21: Whistleblowing
Chapter 22: Fourth Estate
Chapter 23: Read, Write, Execute
Chapter 24: Encrypt
Chapter 25: The Boy
Chapter 26: Hong Kong
Chapter 27: Moscow
Chapter 28: From the Diaries of Lindsay Mills
Chapter 29: Love and Exile

I felt like the first two parts of the book dragged on before finally capturing my attention in the third part. There was one early part of the book where Ed discuses post 9/11 power grabs in America and later his guilt for falling victim to the fear. That was probably my favorite part of the early book, however a lot of the first two parts were a slog to get through. I didn't like that he constantly embellished his own technical prowess or job roles, that aspect felt a little dishonest to me. I also think it's a little telling how he would constantly refer to himself as a "spy" throughout the book and ended up stealing documents, while at no time ever worked as an actual agent, case officer, or analyst. To the best of my understanding he was a developer or IT admin, and manged computer systems for people. It makes for a decent psychological profile if he acted like that in those positions. The third part of the book was certainly the most interesting to me, focusing on his analysis of the documents and whistle blowing activities. At this point he really is engaged in espionage activities at his own volition, and is actively seeking out and stealing documents. Covering how he learned of some of the programs then started to collect documents with his project and would exfiltrate them on microSD cards was pretty entertaining. That said he makes some amazing points in his defense, like how he never sold these documents to foreign powers and also didn't dump them into the public eye without careful review and analysis. I think he was thoughtful in how he released the documents, even coordinating and meeting with famous human rights journalists regarding the releases. At one point Snowden made a great point that America was essentially founded by whistle blowers or people standing up what they believed in, despite the authorities, for the general public's good. So much so, that we have The Whistleblower Protection Act, but this would very likely not protect Snoden because of the public way he disclosed. Finally, the interview with Joe Rogan is really good and what prompted me to read this book. I actually find this interview better than the book as he is more to the point regarding the civil liberties violations and it's less padding with his life story. Enjoy!