PDF Summary:Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden
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1-Page PDF Summary of Permanent Record
In 2013, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the existence of STELLARWIND, the US government’s mass surveillance program. Until Snowden revealed the program, the US government was recording the phone and computer activities of nearly everyone in the world.
In Permanent Record, Snowden explains how he became involved with the government, how he learned about the mass surveillance program, and how he ultimately made the decision to speak up—a decision that would change his life, and the lives of everyone who uses the Internet, forever.
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Because most of the Internet is based in the US or owned by American companies, STELLARWIND affected nearly everyone in the world.
Ed Returns to the US
Initially, Ed decided not to do anything about what he’d discovered. He and his girlfriend moved back to the US from Japan and Ed began a stressful job as a solutions consultant with Dell.
Around the same time, clouds and smart home devices were becoming popular. People were happy—and sometimes even willing to pay—to share their data with companies. Ed wondered if anyone would even care about government mass surveillance if they were so willingly sharing their data with corporations.
Ed had his first epileptic seizure and had to take a leave of absence from work. While he was recovering, he spent much of his time watching news coverage. He wondered if mass surveillance was a legitimate problem, given the scale of some of the conflict and violence taking place around the world. However, he couldn’t help but notice that while people’s causes and governments differed, the main thing everyone wanted was to be free from oppression and censorship.
Ed Builds Heartbeat
In the hopes of better managing his epilepsy, Ed took a new job with the NSA in Hawaii, which his doctors had recommended for its relaxed lifestyle. While there, he decided to learn more about the mass surveillance program. He knew he wouldn’t be able to decide what to do about it until he understood it fully.
Ed created a program called Heartbeat. Heartbeat searched the intelligence agencies “readboards” (news blogs) and pulled documents. It then created a feed tailored to an agent’s office, clearance, and projects. Ed had access to everyone’s documents and used Heartbeat to learn more about the mass surveillance program without arousing suspicion.
Ed Decides to Act
After reviewing the Constitution in 2012, Ed decided he had to act. STELLARWIND violated the Fourth Amendment. He decided to get in touch with journalists and share the top secret documents that proved the existence of the US’s mass surveillance program.
If Ed was caught, he’d be arrested, and the NSA had plenty of security. However, Ed had spent his entire career learning to anonymize himself on the Internet and he’d built a lot of the systems the NSA used, so he knew how to exploit them. Additionally, as a systems administrator, Ed also had access to reports about people who’d been caught selling secrets, so he had some idea of how to avoid detection.
Ed had already found the documents he needed to leak through Heartbeat, but the NSA logs everything that’s done on their network-connected computers, so Ed couldn’t organize or make copies of the files without attracting attention. He switched to the night shift and invented a compatibility-testing project that gave him a legitimate reason to transfer Heartbeat files onto older computers that weren’t connected to the NSA’s main networks. On these old computers, Ed compressed and encrypted the documents and transferred them onto small SD cards. Then he smuggled the SD cards out of the NSA in his cheek, in his socks, or behind the panels of a Rubik’s Cube.
Connecting with journalists was also a challenge. Ed decided to start with Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, two journalists who were on the intelligence agencies’ to-watch list. To get in touch with them anonymously, Ed drove around the island of Hawaii and connected to strangers’ wifi connections. He used encrypted email and a computer that deleted everything he did on it every time it was shut down.
Ed Uses XKEYSCORE
Ed wanted to see how mass surveillance technology works in practice, so he took a job at the NSA’s National Threat Operations Center. There, he used XKEYSCORE, a program that allowed him to view almost everything anyone had ever done on the Internet. He learned about what porn people watched and saw pictures of their families. He found it incredibly invasive.
Ed continued talking to the journalists. He had trouble setting up a meeting in advance because he couldn’t give them a date or place. He had to find a country that had free internet but also wouldn't be so intimidated by the US that it would immediately give Ed up when the story broke.
Ed Blows the Whistle
Ed met with journalists in Hong Kong in spring 2013 and the mass surveillance program was revealed to the public. Ed decided to reveal his own identity as the whistleblower so he could do so on his own terms. (If the government revealed him first, they’d try to discredit him and shift the focus from their illegal activities to Ed’s.) Ed’s family and girlfriend back in the US were harassed by the government—his girlfriend went through long interrogations and was followed by the FBI 24/7.
The US government charged Ed under the Espionage Act for divulging top secret documents and called for his extradition. The government of Hong Kong wouldn’t protect him and he tried to get to Ecuador with the help of WikiLeaks, an organization that publishes leaks and classified information. Ed couldn’t fly direct and ended up stranded in Russia when the US canceled his passport.
Ed was stuck in a Russian airport for forty days before the Russian government granted him temporary asylum. His girlfriend moved to Russia to join him and they were married. Ed still lives in Russia as of 2019, where he works for the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Ed’s disclosures resulted in:
- Public outcry and national conversations about surveillance.
- Congress’s investigation of the NSA.
- Court cases about the NSA’s programs. Some of the cases restricted the NSA’s future activity.
- The USA Freedom Act, which forbids “bulk collection” (mass surveillance) of American’s phone records.
- Companies and individuals using tighter security, such as encryption.
- EU whistleblower and privacy protections, notably the General Data Protection Regulation, which states that data isn’t owned by the person who collects it; it’s owned by the person it’s about.
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PDF Summary Shortform Introduction
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- Part 4 covers Ed’s discovery of the mass surveillance program, STELLARWIND, from approximately 2009 to 2012.
- Part 5 covers Ed’s decision to blow the whistle, how he did so, and the fallout. It covers early 2013 until 2019.
PDF Summary Part 1: Growing Up | Chapter 1: Childhood
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The World Wide Web is the collection of web pages accessed via the Internet. It was invented in 1989 in Geneva by the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire/European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
As a child, Ed liked spying. In his parents’ house, there was a window between his room and the den and he would spy on his family members as they watched TV, did chores, or in the case of his father Lonnie, played with technology.
Meeting a Computer
In his work as an engineer with the Coast Guard, Lonnie often had access to new technology and sometimes he brought it home. One day, Lonnie brought home a Commodore 64, one of the first home computers. Ed spied on his father while he played Choplifter!
Ed got caught, but his father wasn’t mad. Instead, Lonnie let Ed sit on his lap as he played Choplifter! He even gave Ed an unplugged joystick so he could pretend to play along.
Learning From Mom
Lonnie was often away for work, so Ed’s mother Wendy was a large part of his childhood. She taught Ed and his sister, Jessica, how to read by labeling their dresser drawers (socks, underwear) and taking them to the library. Ed’s favorite books were...
PDF Summary Chapter 2: Teenage Years
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Chatting Online
There were a few ways to chat with people online, and Ed liked online bulletin-board systems (BBSes). Ed mostly used them to ask questions about building computers and received plenty of personal, generous responses. Reflecting back on this as an adult, Ed thinks most people on the Internet were civil because there was a high bar for entry. It wasn’t easy or convenient to use the Internet—you had to plug your computer into a phone jack and it could take whole minutes to establish the dial-up connection. If you were willing to go to the trouble to get online, you were worth talking to.
Ed loved the freedom anonymity gave him. He didn’t have to be a 12-year-old boy, he could be anyone, and he created a variety of personas for himself. Whenever he had what he considered a stupid or amateur question, he’d ask it on an amateur board under a new name. Or, if he posted something inflammatory and people hated the post (they couldn’t hate him because they didn’t know who he was), he’d drop the name and pick up a new one. Sometimes, he’d even use the new name to join the mob complaining about what he’d previously posted himself. He felt this was a relief....
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Learn more about our summaries →PDF Summary Part 2: Army Career | Chapter 3: Service
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While Ed was injured, he was put on fireguard. His partner decided to go AWOL, which is a crime. Ed asked why the man had even told him—Ed was injured and the man would have had plenty of time to run away while Ed was at the latrine. He explained that Ed was the only one who listened. Ed believed him, went to the latrine, and didn’t tell anyone that the man was leaving.
Ed was reassessed and the doctor said he couldn’t continue with basic training. Ed could try again later, outside of the X-Ray program, or, he could leave the army on “administrative separation.” The doctor explained to Ed that this was a quick, low-paperwork way to leave the army that didn’t involve either an honorable or dishonorable discharge. Ed liked the idea and agreed. Then he saw the paperwork.
Ed had to sign a statement that said he was completely healed. It was a hack. The government was trying to get out of liability and paying him disability benefits. But Ed couldn’t get free without signing, so he did.
PDF Summary Part 3: Technologist Career | Chapter 4: Working for the University of Maryland
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After some time, Ed’s legs healed and he thought about what he would do with the rest of his life. He may not have made the cut for the army, but he was young and smart and had plenty of other options. Part of why he’d gone to the army was because he wanted to succeed at something that was hard for him. Computers had always been easy.
Now, however, Ed realized that he would best be able to serve via a computer. He also realized that computers would have a better chance than guns at implementing and maintaining democracy. Ed wasn’t really a veteran, but having gotten into the army could be some help if he applied to work at an intelligence agency. If he was going to get into intelligence, however, he would also need a security clearance
Getting Clearance
Ed aimed for TS/SCI. He got a government job with the University of Maryland that would sponsor his clearance application. Ed was a good candidate: he didn’t have a criminal record or drug habit, plenty of his family members had served and so had he, and his only debt was student loans. However, he was still nervous because the check would look into every element of his life. The National Background...
PDF Summary Chapter 5: Working for the CIA
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The CIA was also unpopular with the public because information about black site prisons and other activities was leaked around the same time.
Indoctrination
On their first day, contract technologist employees go to a session called Indoc, short for indoctrination. The session has a few goals:
Convince the attendees that they’re special, elite, and would have access to information even Congress wouldn’t. The author says computer geniuses don’t need much convincing—they already have a healthy sense of their own importance. They’ve always been able to do and learn things with computers that others haven’t. They’re used to making decisions on behalf of others, acting independently, and controlling machines.
Emphasize security practices, such as not telling anyone where you work or what you do, being careful with documents, and not bringing your insecure cell into the workplace.
Present the bad guys. The Indoc leaders show a Powerpoint presentation of former contractors and employees who betrayed the CIA, accompanied by warnings about ruin and imprisonment.
Entering the intelligence community affects a person psychologically. She suddenly...
PDF Summary Part 4: Discovering Government Mass Surveillance | Chapter 6: Relocation to Tokyo
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Metadata
Metadata is information about how content is made. For example, if you make a phone call, the metadata is how long the call was, the time and date, the numbers on the call, and where the phones were at the time of the call.
Your devices are constantly and automatically creating and emitting metadata. If someone is surveilling you and has access to your metadata, they know your routines and where you are at all times. They can predict your behavior. (In theory. Using data to predict people’s behavior isn’t very accurate and is, in fact, more like manipulation. For example, the government might try to predict what you’ll do based on the pattern of what you’ve done, the same way a website might suggest a book you’d like because you’ve read a different book. This is less prediction and more like getting you to do an action you’re presented with.)
In terms of mass surveillance, metadata is more useful than exact transcripts of your phone calls because it helps the NSA narrow down whom to target. For example, if you send an email to an organization that the NSA is interested in, they might become interested in you. Ironically, the law...
PDF Summary Chapter 7: Return to the US
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In 2011, they returned from Japan and bought a condo in Columbia, Maryland. While they were furnishing their new home, Ed encountered a fridge that had wifi. Knowing everything that he did about surveillance, he was sure the reason a fridge needed Internet access was to spy on people and collect data, then allow the manufacturer to sell the data. Ed wondered if it was even worth worrying about government surveillance if people were buying things like smart fridges. (Amazon Alexa and Google Home wouldn’t come out for a few years.)
Working in Sales
Ed continued working for Dell and went back to being a contractor for the CIA. He was now working in sales—Dell’s account manager, Cliff, convinced him to be a solutions consultant. Cliff would sell yet-to-be-invented technology and Ed would build whatever he described. Cliff lied freely about what was possible, and Ed had to build something close enough that they wouldn’t be arrested.
Their main job was to advance the CIA’s technology systems to match those of the NSA. Ed and his team would work towards this goal by building the CIA a private cloud. The goal was to make all the CIA’s data available to agents all over...
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PDF Summary Chapter 8: How to Blow the Whistle
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The founders who wrote the Constitution saw the potential for abuses of power. The founders tried to mitigate abuses by dividing power into three government branches with equal powers. However, all three branches failed when it came to privacy and mass surveillance:
The legislative branch is the two houses of Congress. Congress didn’t stay informed about the capabilities and actions of the intelligence community, or if they did know, couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about it.
- For example, in 2013, the director of National Intelligence said under oath that the NSA didn’t mass surveil US citizens. Some of the congresspeople knew that wasn’t true but didn’t speak up.
The judicial branch in the case of intelligence is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Its job is to grant warrants for collecting foreign intelligence. Before 9/11, the warrants were specific and individual; after, they were more general and could approve mass surveillance programs like upstream collection.
The executive branch is the president, and this is where all the problems started. Bush told the NSA to start mass surveillance after 9/11.
Deciding to Act
In...
PDF Summary Part 5: Blowing the Whistle | Chapter 9: Revealing Mass Surveillance
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Breaking the News
Laura, Glenn, and Glenn’s colleague Ewen MacAskill meet Ed in Hong Kong on June 2. From June 3-9, Ed talked to Glenn and Ewen while Laura filmed. At night, Ewen and Glenn would write up the day’s work, and Laura would edit her video and work remotely with another journalist, Bart Gellman.
The Guardian released Glenn’s first story on June 5. It was about the NSA collecting data from Verizon, which the FISA Court had permitted. On June 6, a story about PRISM appeared in both the Guardian and Washington Post.
Coming Forward
Ed’s office had tried to get in touch with him—he was supposed to have returned to work May 31—and he ignored their messages. The US government was working hard to identify the source of the leak and Ed knew that they’d soon figure out it was him. Ed also knew that if they identified him, they’d spin the story to misrepresent him so he looked crazy or morally suspect, and they’d shift the focus from what they’d done to what he’d done.
Ed decided he’d reveal himself as the source of the leak before the government could. Ewen wrote a story about him and Laura suggested doing a video statement. They didn’t have time...
PDF Summary Chapter 10: What Happened to Lindsay
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When she wasn’t being interrogated, she was being followed. She had an FBI tail 24/7 for her own protection. The media got a hold of her photo and the public labeled Lindsay a whore and stripper.
Lindsay was angry with Ed, but she knew he’d done the right thing.
Lindsay left Hawaii a couple of months later.
PDF Summary Chapter 11: Changes
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Business switched from http to the more secure https for their websites. The S stands for “secure,” and https helps stop third parties from intercepting website requests.
More encrypted apps and tools have been developed, such as Signal, an encrypted text and call app, and SecureDrop, which allows people to anonymously share whistleblowing documents with journalists.
By 2016, more than half the traffic on the Internet was encrypted.
International citizen outrage. US mass surveillance affected people all over the world, and the angriest populations were those of countries that had cooperated with the US. People wanted the right to privacy.
EU whistleblower and privacy protections, notably the General Data Protection Regulation. This regulation states that data is owned by the person it’s about, rather than the person who collected it. If people own their data, it’s easier to protect it as a civil liberty.
Continued Need for Opposition
The author’s goal was to tell everyone about mass surveillance, but just being aware of it isn’t enough. Data is global—it travels and is stored...