What is the main message of Permanent Record?

The main message of Permanent Record is the importance of privacy and the potential dangers of mass surveillance.

How long does it take to read Permanent Record?

Reading Permanent Record takes several hours, but the Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Who is the author of Permanent Record?

The author of Permanent Record is Edward Snowden.

Biography & Memoir

Permanent Record Book Summary - Permanent Record Book explained in key points

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Permanent Record summary

Name: Permanent Record
Rating: 4.5 (166 reviews)
Author: Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden

The long-awaited memoir of infamous whistleblower Edward Snowden

4.5 (166 ratings)

25 mins

Brief summary

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden is an autobiography where he reveals how he became the most wanted man in the world after leaking more than a million classified documents from the National Security Agency.

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Memoirs

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Permanent Record
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What’s in it for me? Get the inside Snowden story.

Even if you’ve barely paid attention to the news in recent years, you’ve heard the name Edward Snowden.

Sometimes this name is uttered with contempt, sometimes with admiration. Depending on whom you ask, he is either a traitor to his country or a modern-day hero. How did a young, introverted tech nerd from Maryland become one of the most important and controversial figures in recent American history?

Well, in proud democratic tradition, Snowden blew the whistle on a situation that he felt was wrong and illegal. Working as a tech specialist for the NSA and CIA, he dealt with the secret system of mass surveillance the US government developed after 9/11, which allowed US intelligence agencies to collect the private communications of any of its citizens and access them at will.

When Snowden found out that the US government was secretly spying on innocent citizens, he decided to risk everything to tell the world about this violation of privacy. These blinks tell the story of his upbringing and career, and the personal convictions that made him into the whistleblower he would become.

In these blinks, you’ll find out:

how rebelling against bedtime rules marked the beginning of Snowden’s hacking career;
why he decided to expose the US government program that spied on American citizens; and
how he smuggled top secret documents out of the NSA building.

Born into a family of government officials, Edward Snowden was raised on the internet of the 1990s.

When we hear the word “internet” today, we think of Google, Facebook, and Amazon. These mega-companies have found a way to capitalize on our online time so efficiently that they have come to rule the world wide web.

But in the 90s, the internet was still in its infancy. Used almost exclusively by specialists and tech nerds, it was a place devoid of rules and full of elaborate amateur websites and forums, where people from around the world gathered to share obscure knowledge and try on different online identities.

That was the internet that made Edward Snowden.

Snowden was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, into a family of public servants. His mom was a government clerk from a long line of military officials, and his dad was a technical engineer for the Coast Guard. When Edward was nine, his mother started a new administrative job at the NSA and the Snowden family moved to Fort Meade, a famous US army installation in Maryland. Secretive government jobs like his mother's were typical for the inhabitants of Fort Meade.

But even though he enjoyed spying on his big sister Jessica through his bedroom window, young Snowden initially had no interest in becoming a government spy. His first love was technology. From the early Commodore 64 computer system his dad brought home to his first Nintendo, Snowden loved spending time playing with — and taking apart — electronic devices of all kinds.

When the family bought its first computer with an internet connection, Edward and the machine became inseparable. He spent almost every waking minute online, reading about technology and politics and playing adventure games.

On the internet, Edward found a community of people who shared his interests and were eager to answer his questions. Soon he was chatting with tech nerds from across the globe, arguing about hardware problems, cheat codes, or the death penalty. These interactions didn’t just improve his computer skills; they also helped form his worldview.

His online peers didn’t mind that in real life he was just an awkward, introverted thirteen-year-old. In fact, they didn’t even know. In contrast to today, when our online profiles have become closely linked to our real identities, the internet of the 1990s was a playground of anonymity.

Edward Snowden had only to change his username to become anyone he wanted, a useful ability for the pastime he soon picked up: hacking.

Young Snowden started hacking systems and subverting the arbitrary rules that adults imposed on him.

You don’t have to know your way around computers to become a hacker.

“Hacking” just means knowing a system so well that you can exploit its weaknesses to your advantage. This system can be a computer system, but it can also be any other system of rules — like your bedtime schedule.

The events of 9/11 made Snowden want to serve his country — and enabled his fast rise through the ranks of government agencies.

Many of us remember where we were when we heard the news on that fateful September morning in 2001.

Edward Snowden was at the house of his friend and business partner Mae, when the two got a call from Mae’s husband. He worked at the NSA, and was calling to tell them that terrorists had attacked the World Trade Center.

Though he still sometimes questioned the rules, Snowden’s computer skills helped him get high-level jobs in the CIA and NSA.

After his brief entry-level stint as a security guard, Snowden was looking for a better way to serve the government with his talents.

He began to attend government job fairs, at which companies like Dell, Intel and Lockheed Martin recruit talent for specialist government jobs done in their name. On paper, these contractors work for said companies; in reality, however, they often report directly to the government agency paying them.

Preparing for a conference in China, Snowden first became suspicious of how much the US government was spying on its citizens.

It was after a few years of working in intelligence that Snowden first realized what the technology he helped build and maintain could be used for.

In 2009, he was working as a systems administrator at the NSA’s Pacific Technical Center. When a colleague dropped out at the last minute, Snowden was asked to attend a conference in Hong Kong to give a presentation on China’s surveillance of private communications. In a matter of hours, he had to read up on the technology China used to monitor its citizens’ online activity, emails, and phone calls.

Snowden set out to investigate the US government’s system of mass surveillance — and then decided to expose it systematically.

After taking some months to recover his health, Snowden took an NSA position in Hawaii. He hoped a new life living in paradise with Lindsay would improve his physical and mental health.

Financially and professionally, the job was a step down. Snowden didn’t mind, though. He used his idle time to browse the NSA’s readboards, which are internal news feeds containing all the reports coming out of a specific department. Snowden had decided that he wanted to learn everything he could about the NSA’s surveillance program. To browse more efficiently, he even built a program called Heartbeat, which compiled all new and important reports on the readboards into a single newsfeed.

To get classified documents out of NSA headquarters and into journalists’ hands, Snowden relied on subterfuge and ingenuity.

Once Snowden had decided to expose the NSA’s mass surveillance program, he came up against a problem: How do you steal top secret documents from one of the world’s most secure institutions?

With the Heartbeat program he had built, accessing documents was easy. The hard part was searching the files for the kind of information that would be useful to Poitras and Greenwald. Snowden knew that any move he made from his NSA work computer would be monitored by the agency, so he couldn’t simply go browsing through classified material. So under the guise of “compatibility testing,” he began transferring the files onto a bunch of disused computers lying around the office. On these old computers, Snowden could safely search and organize the documents.

When the documents were published and the US charged him with espionage, Snowden fled into exile.

Back in Hawaii, a sense of finality befell Snowden. He knew the government would catch him eventually, and so he started preparing to leave the US — forever. The most painful part of this plan was not being able to tell Lindsay about it, because he didn’t want to get her in trouble. After an agonizing last few weeks in Hawaii, Snowden fled the country while she was on a camping trip with friends.

First, Snowden went to meet Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald in Hong Kong, where he helped them put together the articles and videos that would reveal everything.

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What is Permanent Record about?

Permanent Record (2019) is the long-awaited memoir of infamous whistleblower Edward Snowden, who in 2013 used his position as a tech specialist at the US National Security Agency to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance. In his autobiography, he tells the story of his life for the first time, from being a teenage computer whiz to his steep ascent in the intelligence community and his decision to risk it all for justice.

Permanent Record Review

Permanent Record (2019) by Edward Snowden is a captivating memoir that delves into his experiences as a former NSA contractor and his decision to leak classified documents. Here's why this book is definitely worth reading:

The book offers a unique insider perspective on the US surveillance system, giving readers a glimpse into the world of government intelligence.
With its detailed accounts and personal reflections, it provides an intimate understanding of the sacrifices Snowden made and the moral dilemmas he faced.
By raising crucial questions about privacy, security, and government accountability, the book sparks thought-provoking conversations on the balance between national security and individual rights.

Best quote from Permanent Record

[H]ackers arent breaking the rules as much as debunking them.

—Edward Snowden

Who should read Permanent Record?

Tech nerds with righteous hearts
Citizens and government officials concerned with privacy issues
People who have wondered whether their phones are spying on them

About the Author

Edward Snowden is one of the most important whistleblowers in recent American history. Born into a family of government officials, he became a tech specialist for the CIA and a contractor for the NSA, where he learned about how the US was spying on its citizens and decided to make it public. For his service, he has received the Right Livelihood Award – the “alternative Nobel Prize” – and the German Whistleblower Prize, among other distinctions.

Categories with Permanent Record

Biography & Memoir

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