Permanent Record

“Her heritage is straight Pilgrim—her first ancestor on these shores was John Alden, the Mayflower’s cooper, or barrelmaker.”

Much as the previous quote seeks to establish Snowden’s credentials as a spy, this slice of family history establishes his status as an American. By tying his family history to one of the nation’s defining points of origin (the voyage of the Mayflower and the settling of the Pilgrims), he demonstrates his bona fides as an American, which come into question when he is later accused of being a traitor.

“This might not strike you as the healthiest environment in which to grow up, and yet it is precisely the only environment in which you can grow up—by which I meant that the early internet’s dissociative opportunities actually encouraged me and those of my generation to change our most deeply held opinions, instead of just digging in and defending them when challenged.” 

The collectivist, enthusiastic, and anonymous early internet offered an optional entry point into a novel online world. In that world, under the cloak of anonymity, people could challenge their assumptions in an environment of safety. Today, the internet is taken for granted, and people are usually identified as they use online tools. His defense of the early internet is not technological—the modern infrastructure is demonstrably better—but ideological in nature.

“As a teenager, my first hack that ever courted trouble dealt with a fear that suddenly became all I could think about: the threat of a full-on, scorched-earth nuclear holocaust.”

After Snowden finds a security hole in the Los Alamos National Laboratory website, he diligently reports it in the hope that it will be fixed. The challenge of getting through and getting the site fixed causes him to question whether it’s always expedient to go through “the proper channels.” Later, the “scorched-earth nuclear holocaust” becomes a metaphor for the huge fallout from the leaks (46), as the global population suddenly learns the truth about mass surveillance. 

“Every childhood fuss I’d ever made flickered in my mind like crime-scene footage, evidence that I was responsible for what happened.”

As his parents’ marriage collapses, Snowden experiences new levels of guilt and worry. He frets that his own behavior caused the divorce, a strikingly human moment that predates his entry into the cool, disjointed, and unemotional world of espionage. Those involved in the intelligence services, no matter how detached and seemingly uncaring they seem, are still human and prone to the same worries and concerns as everyone else. 

“She was too opposed to the war.” 

Still a teenager, Snowden recounts his experiences on 9/11 and how, in his view, it changed both him and the country. The increased security and the changes in idioms and tone among Americans speak to wider societal changes. The growing divide between Snowden and Mae demonstrates the manner in which the attack would become a wedge that split apart old friendships. 

“Nearly a hundred thousand spies returned to work at the agencies with the knowledge that they’d failed at their primary job, which was protecting America.” 

In describing the aftermath of 9/11, Snowden seeks to explain why the surveillance state was erected. After failing to prevent such a devastating attack, intelligence agents experienced palpable and understandable psychological trauma. They do not hesitate to begin large-scale mass surveillance because they feel guilty as well as scared. Yet in this way of “protecting America,” they fail to protect America’s most cherished personal liberties.

“It was heinous to be so inextricably, technologically bound to a past that I fully regretted but barely remembered.” 

The online culture which Snowden once found so freeing and liberating becomes an albatross around his neck when he’s vetted for his first security clearance. The guilt and shame he feels regarding his teenage opinions are not only memories; they exist in cyberspace, still present on long-forgotten forums. The vetting process forces Snowden to confront his online teenage persona in a manner which most will never experience, dragging him face to face with his long-abandoned opinions and jokes. His chagrin also shows what happens when online anonymity is taken away.

“I ended my time in intelligence convinced that my country’s operating system—its government—had decided that it functioned best when broken.” 

After deciding to become a systems engineer, Snowden begins to use the idea of a computer system—his subject of expertise—as an analogy for the entire country after 9/11. With everything broken and falling apart, the repairs and fixes normally applied to a circuit board or a network do not repair the damage done to the country’s government. This perspective helps explain why he made the choices that he did: The decision to leak becomes the action of an engineer, searching for a way to fix a broken system. 

“But for the third-millennium hyperpower America to rely on privatized forces for the national defense struck me as strange and vaguely sinister.” 

Snowden’s discussion of the use of contractors in the intelligence community is not only a critique of the modern American state but also a preemptive defense for later criticism. He primes the reader by explaining the ubiquity of private contractors and providing his own (low) opinion of this, attempting to preempt the government’s later description of him as just a lowly disgruntled contractor. The social critique functions as exposition and, in a roundabout fashion, as a means of building a character defense. 

“American flags billowed like ghosts—spooks in red, white, and blue.” 

Describing his night shift at the CIA, Snowden uses figurative language. His perception of the building as haunted and foreboding reflect his later realization of the broken nature of the intelligence network in the United States. The American flags are like ghosts, terrifying vestiges of a once-living being that now resembles little of what it once embodied. These changes reflect the collapse of traditional American ideals the agency once represented. 

“At age 24, though, I thought as little of the costs as I did of the benefits; I just cared about the system.” 

Even after everything he has been through (the Army, contracting, CIA training), Snowden cannot escape his natural inclinations as a hacker: When he sees a system, he wants to understand, control, and exploit it. He is now up against an altogether different kind of system: the bureaucracy of the CIA. Though he seemingly wins this battle, he is punished by being given the nicest possible job. Just as Snowden learns how to beat the system, he learns that the system is already aware of how it can beat him. 

“Peering at life through a window can ultimately abstract us from our actions and limit any meaningful confrontation with their consequences.” 

Snowden’s discussion of HUMINT and SIGINT comments on his own struggles with depersonalized information gathering and the online culture that allows mass surveillance. Just as he stopped viewing his targets as people, Snowden suggests that modern society’s willingness to experience the world through screens (phones, computers, televisions, and so on) keeps them from seeing people as human, enabling us to act cruelly toward people in online venues, without thought to the consequences. 

“There was simply no way for America to have so much information about what the Chinese were doing without having done some of the very same things itself, and I had the sneaking sense while I was looking through all this China material that I was looking at a mirror and seeing a reflection of America.” 

As Snowden begins to research the Chinese government, he begins to see echoes of his own country’s actions in those of the Chinese. His comprehension of the scale of the American surveillance shocks him; it’s one of the book’s most fundamental paradigm shifts. A man who once split the world into good versus evil is determined not to be fooled again. 

“It made everyone think of heaven.” 

Snowden returns to a different America, one which seems entirely won over by the “benefits” of the surveillance state. He sees the term “cloud computing” as a marketing tour de force: Companies have sold consumers on the advantages of entrusting all of their most personal and important data to faceless corporations and paying a princely sum to do so. The surveillance state is not treated with contempt or suspicion; it’s openly welcomed into people’s homes. 

“And this was the point: The aid I offered was private.” 

After sinking into a deep depression over what he learns about the surveillance state, Snowden decides to act. He sets up a Tor relay point on his server, hoping this may help someone in Iran whose internet has been censored—and understanding that not knowing is the point. He wants their data to remain private as he obsesses over how to deal with the problems of privacy in his own country. The solutions must restore privacy while respecting privacy. 

“The revelations I was pursuing were exactly like those islands: exotic preserves that a pantheon of self-important, self-appointed rulers were convinced had to be kept secret and hidden from humanity.” 

Snowden casts himself as the powerless figure who is battling all-powerful gods. Broken down and depressed, he sees fighting back against the American state as impossible as fighting against a deity. Nevertheless, he continues, which speaks to his determination and his confidence—and perhaps his arrogance. He believes himself a man capable of overthrowing a god. 

“It didn’t matter whether they’d come to the IC out of patriotism or opportunism: Once they’d gotten inside the machine, they became machines themselves.” 

For the first time, Snowden thinks about his fellow workers in a moral context. He sees their plight as tragic: Entirely swallowed up by the powerful machine of the intelligence agencies, a testament to the power of the IC more than the culpability of individuals. He blows the whistle not just for the people of America but for those who have been swallowed up and changed by the machine. 

“My best partners, I decided, would be journalists whom the national security state had already targeted.” 

As Snowden searches for the best way to make his information public, he turns the state’s surveillance apparatus against it. By tracking and targeting certain journalists and storing that data for a long time, the NSA ironically leads the whistleblower to the very people who will expose mass surveillance to the world. 

“The FBI—the agency that investigates all crime within the IC—took great pride in explaining exactly how they caught their suspects, and believe me, I didn’t mind benefiting from their experience.” 

By bragging about how they caught those who tried to commit crimes within the intelligence agencies, the FBI provides Snowden with a detailed account of exactly what to do—and not to do. The FBI’s arrogance enables their worst fears to be realized, all because they insisted on sharing their victories on the intelligence community’s internal computer systems. 

“It felt like I was picking out my prison, or rather my grave.” 

Snowden has explained how and why he acted, but this chapter demonstrates the cost of the decision. When he is trying to select a country from which to leak the documents, he feels as though he is selecting a new home from which he may never return. He can no longer his girlfriend and his parents—or anyone he knows. Snowden is well aware of the destructive emotional impact and the finality of his choice. 

“Hello, world.” 

Describing his reveal to the world as the man behind the leaks, Snowden uses the words “Hello, world”—which is also traditionally the first line of code written by a budding programmer. As such, Snowden’s first public appearance is likened to learning a new skill. Though he is technologically adept, his new life is just beginning. In many ways, he is again a naïve youngster sitting in front of a computer terminal, writing his first program. 

“I knew I had to cut him off.” 

After landing in Russia, Snowden is hyper-alert. An FSB agent is trying to recruit him, and though Snowden is exhausted, his intelligence training kicks in and he recognizes a trap being laid. Though he might not refer to himself as a spy, Snowden demonstrates many of the skills essential to serving well in the intelligence community. 

“While the rest of the country is coming to grips with the fact that their privacy is being violated, mine’s being stripped from me on a whole new level.” 

Lindsay’s perspective adds a new voice to the narrative. Like the rest of the world, she is slowly coming to grips with the extent of the mass surveillance, revealed by her boyfriend to the world. While everyone else learns how much they are passively surveilled, Lindsay is aggressively monitored, highlighting the possible end result of a state in which the population gives up its right to privacy.