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jeruen 's review for:
Permanent Record
by Edward Snowden
I am absolutely glad to have read this book. It was eye-opening, I must say, and is something I recommend to everyone who cares about privacy.
It's been years since I have encountered news articles about Edward Snowden. That was 2013 if I remember correctly, and later on I also watched the documentary Citizenfour. It's not that I had particular interest about Snowden per se. But later on, a few years later, my personal and professional interest in the concept of privacy as a basic human right increased, and so I cannot not pick up this book. I am glad that I did.
I won't provide a summary here: the author after all is too well-known given the revelations he had made about the illicit activities of the US government. And as this memoir describes in detail, there's just so much information out there about oneself that is already known, and illicitly collected, by governments. Sometimes, I wonder, whether the point of no return has already been reached, and there's no more point in hiding, or trying to remain private.
I'd like to think that there's still a possibility to be left alone. But alas, that seems not to be the case anymore. As long as you have an email address, a smartphone, an Internet connection, then there are traces of you and that these traces have been picked up. If needed, these traces can be queried. And someone can figure out who you are, all in the name of national security. It's hard sometimes to wrap one's head around this fact.
In any case, this is a sobering book, and something that I am glad to have picked up and read. I definitely recommend this book to everyone, if you want to know what the world - and governments, in particular - know about you. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
See my other book reviews here.
It's been years since I have encountered news articles about Edward Snowden. That was 2013 if I remember correctly, and later on I also watched the documentary Citizenfour. It's not that I had particular interest about Snowden per se. But later on, a few years later, my personal and professional interest in the concept of privacy as a basic human right increased, and so I cannot not pick up this book. I am glad that I did.
I won't provide a summary here: the author after all is too well-known given the revelations he had made about the illicit activities of the US government. And as this memoir describes in detail, there's just so much information out there about oneself that is already known, and illicitly collected, by governments. Sometimes, I wonder, whether the point of no return has already been reached, and there's no more point in hiding, or trying to remain private.
I'd like to think that there's still a possibility to be left alone. But alas, that seems not to be the case anymore. As long as you have an email address, a smartphone, an Internet connection, then there are traces of you and that these traces have been picked up. If needed, these traces can be queried. And someone can figure out who you are, all in the name of national security. It's hard sometimes to wrap one's head around this fact.
In any case, this is a sobering book, and something that I am glad to have picked up and read. I definitely recommend this book to everyone, if you want to know what the world - and governments, in particular - know about you. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
See my other book reviews here.