Snowden’s memoirs, condemned by his country, return to his attachment to the founding values of the United States, and in particular to individual freedom. It was these that pushed him to denounce the widespread surveillance put in place by the NSAand of which he was one of the cogs.
“A very courageous man” who “has character” – these are the words Vladimir Putin used by director Oliver Stone to describe Edward Snowden, who has taken refuge in his country since 2013. More than six years after the publication of documents stolen from the federal technical intelligence agency, the National Security Agency (NSA) by a US citizen who was completely unknown at the time – Edward Snowden – his Mémoires vives was published in the fall of 2019 (in France at the same time as in the United States). The title of memoir is perfectly justified although this computer scientist from the NSA is only thirty-six years old. Before the middle of a life it could be considered a little presumptuous or worrying to speak of memories, but it is certain that E. Snowden turned a major page in his life by starting to publish secret documents in June 2013. Their content has lastingly influenced the analysis that can be made of the international system. Without being suspected of presentism, we can consider that there is a before and after Snowden: since 2013 no one can ignore that the United States has set up – for a long time – a system of indiscriminate collection of digital data produced at every moment.
Memoirs of an International Pariah
Prosecuted by the federal justice system of his country for espionage, the author has been a refugee since 2013 in Russia, which granted him political asylum after many Western countries – including France – refused it. This is therefore a work written by a “prevented” author who is facing a particularly serious charge for which he faces a very heavy prison sentence. Published in his country by Metropolitan Books under the (best) title Permanent Recordthe book sheds light on the reasons that led him to publish documents with a high degree of confidentiality, thus making him now the best known and most vigorously pursued of the American whistleblowers. From this point of view, we learn more than in the dozens of filmed interviews granted by him from his place of refuge and available on the most famous video hosting website. Snowden has become an activist in the fight against global surveillance practiced by his country, which he continues to fight in the name of the fundamental principles of the Constitution of the United States, which is his leitmotif.
Digital Technology as a Tool for US Global Domination
Like all memoir works, it does not escape the genre’s flaws: strong recomposition with a chain of events, made consistent with a dramatic rise to his flight to Hong Kong in June 2013 and the publication of the first documents. The work, which would have benefited from being more carefully translated, despite the author’s obvious lack of literary ambition, is nonetheless highly interesting for anyone interested in international and technological issues. This is indeed the main contribution of the work, beyond the issues related to US domination and espionage. Reading Snowden, we can measure the increased power conferred on the United States by its sole domination of the Internet. Barack Obama’s blunt public statements: “We have owned the Internet. Our companies have created it, expanded it, perfected it”, made in February 2015, allow us to better understand how the “global surveillance system” was built. The tool of domination is first and foremost technological and it is therefore very useful that this testimony was made by a high-level computer technician who wanted to give an educational dimension to his remarks.
A generational testimony from a son of a “federal family”
The importance of the cause defended should not obscure the personality of the author because this seems to partly explain his militant choice. The Snowden family genealogy makes Edward S. a descendant through his mother of the Pilgrim fathers arrived on the American coast aboard the “Mayflower” in 1620. The reality of this ancestry is irrelevant, the important thing is that he adheres to this belief. His parents come from a background of sailors, Puritans and Quakers. The social background is also noteworthy: a father who was an engineer in the Coast Guard and a mother who worked for a time at the NSAwhich makes the outcast a son of ” federal family “. The great adventure of young Snowden, born in 1983, comes with the discovery of computers, in the form of the first home computers. Then, in the mid-1990s, the discovery of the Internet becomes his main occupation to the point of overshadowing high school. Edward Snowden is a technophile, a geek who becomes a computer hacker and shares the libertarian ideology of Internet activists. We understand from reading him that information technologies carry very strong values to the point of becoming self-referential: they are a universe in which E. Snowden was formed. He finishes his secondary studies with difficulty and begins higher education without much conviction. At the age of 18, the big break in his life occurs, the trauma of 9/11. He then supports the “war on terror” without reservation: “I supported this policy unconditionally and blindly, it is the greatest regret of my life” (p. 93). The author clearly acknowledges: “(…) I had renounced my political opinions; the anti-institutional principles which had inspired the hacker that I was and the apolitical patriotism inherited from my parents” (p. 93). He then joined the army’s special forces, but injured during his training, Snowden applied as a computer scientist for the intelligence services where he seemed to quickly excel to the point of being entrusted with important responsibilities.
Journey within the NSA
The main interest of the book lies more in what it says in the 5 central chapters than in the story of the preparation of the thefts of documents and that of its escape despite its incredible and romantic character. Indeed, in chapters 15 to 20 the reader can follow the engineer Edward Snowden within the CIA and especially in the heart of the NSA. Hired by the CIAhe became a “system administrator” and “system engineer” first at the Geneva embassy from 2007 to 2009, then for two years (2009-2011) on behalf of the NSA in Japan. It was during this assignment that he became aware of the mass surveillance resulting in the storage of all digital content. He then observed the transformation of the libertarian Internet of his adolescence. After two years back in the United States within the CIAhe then left undercover for the Dell company in Hawaii on behalf of the NSA. He claims that it was during these two years that his desire to deliver documents to denounce global surveillance was confirmed. What is probably most striking is the fact that Snowden seems very free in his activity despite the insistence of internal security procedures which we see are far from always respected. We even note a form of isolation probably due to his skills and his functions linked to his “network” capacities. Probably also to instructions of caution: no name is ever given, simply nicknames and the author is ultimately not very talkative about the NSAThe long list of lawyers and legal advisers thanked attests that this book was not written on a whim, but as a considered act of militancy, as much to denounce the extent of surveillance as to prepare a defense, the author having never hidden his intention to return to his country one day.
During the Cold War, Soviet defectors took refuge in the West and often in the United States. A few very rare Westerners, like the British Kim Philby, who came from the social and political elite of his country, went to Moscow where they died. Philby was a convinced communist who betrayed his country out of ideals. On the contrary, the Living memories and the many interviews show that Snowden remains very attached to the values of his country. While he was supposed to continue on his way to Ecuador, he was in fact forced to stay in Moscow when he learned that the State Department had cancelled his passport, prohibiting him de facto to leave the place where he was. Did he know that in 1960 two cryptologists from the NSAWilliam H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchel held a press conference in Moscow? They were the first to denounce the extent of the surveillance system already in place by the NSA. The case of Snowden’s predecessors was quickly forgotten in the “free world” of the time. However, it seems that today no one doubts the “global surveillance” by the United States as indicated by opinion polls. Snowden succeeded, probably at the cost of his freedom.