Edward Snowden is the most influential person towards our knowledge of modern surveillance systems. In 2013, Snowden revealed the explosion of modern surveillance after 9/11. Snowden disclosed hundreds of thousands of NSA documents, Department of Defence documents, and even British and Australian intelligence files.
Snowden entered his teenage years just as computers were getting popular. After being shown how to program, Snowden spent his time experimenting with the computer, logging on into the internet and talking on forums. In school, Snowden intentionally avoided homework to scrape by with a minimum passing grade. Once he failed in sophomore year of high school, he chose to enroll in community college.
Both of his parents were government workers with security clearances, so Snowden was a good fit for entering the intelligence sector. After enlisting in the military, getting injured, Snowden entered the security clearance program for entering the NSA.
Once Snowden saw coworkers access personal videos of families, he started to devise an elaborate plan for transferring classified documents into his computer. Snowden hid SD chips to pass through security, and transferred data by using a number of anonymity services, including Tor. He secretly emailed information primarily to journalists Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, where they would eventually interview him in a Hong Kong hotel room.
Snowden was charged under the Espionage Act once the information got out into the press. Snowden looked for political asylum in many countries, and eventually was granted temporary asylum in Russia. Some critics of the book and Snowden speculate on his dependence on Russia and how that affects his book and opinions.
In 2019, Snowden published an autobiography called Permanent Record. It’s really interesting, so I would recommend anyone to read it if they have time. The US filed a lawsuit against the book to receive the proceeds for the book, and China has censored the information in the book.
Sources:
SNOWDEN, EDWARD. PERMANENT RECORD. PICADOR, 2020.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.