The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man

by Luke Harding

It began with an unsigned "I am a senior member of the intelligence community".
What followed was the most spectacular intelligence breach ever, brought about by one extraordinary man, Edward Snowden. The consequences have shaken the leaders of nations worldwide, from Obama to Cameron, to the presidents of Brazil, France, and Indonesia, and the chancellor of Germany.
Edward Snowden, a young computer genius working for America's National Security Agency, blew the whistle on the way this frighteningly powerful organisation uses new technology to spy on the entire planet. The spies call it "mastering the internet". Others call it the death of individual privacy.
This is the inside story of Snowden's deeds and the journalists who faced down pressure from the US and UK governments to break a remarkable scoop.
Snowden's story reads like a globe-trotting thriller, from the day he left his glamorous girlfriend in Hawaii, carrying a hard drive full of secrets, to the weeks of secret-spilling in Hong Kong and his battle for asylum. Now stuck in Moscow, a uniquely hunted man, he faces US espionage charges and an uncertain future in exile.
What drove Snowden to sacrifice himself? Award-winning Guardian journalist Luke Harding asks the question which should trouble every citizen of the internet age . Luke Harding's other books include Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy and Mafia How One Reporter Became an Enemy of the Brutal New Russia .

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Biography, History, Technology, Audiobook, Biography Memoir

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Luke Daniel Harding is a British journalist working as a foreign correspondent for The Guardian. He was the correspondent of The Guardian in Russia from 2007 until, returning from a stay in the UK on February 5, 2011, he was refused re-entry to Russia and deported back the same day. The Guardian said his expulsion was linked with his critical articles on Russia, while Russia's foreign ministry said that an extended certificate of foreign correspondence was not obtained in time. After the reversal of the decision on February 9 and the granting of a short-term visa, Harding chose not to seek a further visa extension.

Reviews

[Sawsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real story written by the guardian reporter Luke Harding about the American Edward Snowden the former employee at the National Security Agency who copied and leaked highly classified documents and information at 2013, exposing the surveillance programs of the United States government.
the book displays his life, work and the Hong Kong period where he shocked the world by exposing the secret facts, till his residence in Moscow
even if nothing changes, he is still a brave man did what he thought the right thing to do

[Diane in Australia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always said that if the average person, in any country, knew just one-tenth of what goes on behind closed doors in their government (and big business), they'd be horrified. Snowden's files prove me correct. Sadly, I doubt if exposure changes things much ... except to make the offenders seek out new ways to keep doing their deeds.

4 Stars = Outstanding. It definitely held my interest.

[Νόρα · Rating 5 out of 5]

Η προσωπική ιστορία του αμερικανού πρώην στελέχους της κοινότητας των μυστικών υπηρεσιών,που αποκάλυψε το αδιανόητο εύρος των παράνομων και αναίτιων παρακολουθήσεων που κάνουν οι μυστικές υπηρεσίες των ΗΠΑ και του Ηνωμένου Βασιλείου σε εκατομμύρια, χωρίς καμία άδεια και αιτιολογία.

Την υπόθεση Σνόουντεν την είχα παρακολουθήσει εκτενώς όταν ξέσπασε, λίγο από την τηλεόραση(πιο πολύ από περιέργεια για να δω τι μπαρούφες θα λέγανε τα ελληνικά κανάλια), αλλά κυρίως ήμουν κολλημένη στο ίντερνετ καθημερινά και διάβαζα ειδήσεις.
Όταν θα είχε καταλαγιάσει ο θόρυβος ήθελα να διαβάσω και το βιβλίο που ευτυχώς μεταφράστηκε και στα ελληνικά.

Άκρως διαφωτιστικό σχετικά με την υπόθεση Σνόουντεν. Διαβάζοντας το συνειδητοποίησα πόσο διαστρεβλώνει τα γεγονότα η τηλεόραση.Βέβαια δεν περίμενα τίποτε άλλο από το μέσο της παραπληροφόρησης.
Έχει πολύ ενδιαφέρον να διαβάσεις για την ζωή του,πως διαμορφώθηκε η σκέψη του μέσα από τις εμπειρίες του,αλλά και τους λόγους που τον οδήγησαν σε αυτή τη πράξη.

Και τι έμαθα από αυτό το βιβλίο ; πολλά και σημαντικά.
Αρχικά τη δύναμη και την επιρροή που μπορεί να έχει η τεχνολογία στην δημοκρατία της καθημερινότητας στην σύγχρονη κοινωνία(O Όργουελ επιβεβαιώνεται και να σκεφτείς ότι κάποτε τον λέγανε τρελό)

Έμαθα τι είναι η NSΑ και ότι διαθέτει καταπληκτικές ικανότητες για τον πρωτοφανή όγκο δεδομένων επικοινωνιών που μπορεί να συλλέξει σε όλο τον κόσμο.
Με την βοήθεια της η κυβέρνηση των ΗΠΑ έχει βάλει κοριούς στα προσωπικά κινητά τηλέφωνα της Άνγκελα Μέρκελ, Ενρίκε Πένια Νιέτο(ο πρόεδρος του Μεξικού), Ντίλμα Βάνα Ρούσεφ(οικονομολόγος,πολιτικός, πρόεδρος της Βραζιλίας) και σε δεκάδες άλλους ηγέτες του κόσμου.Τουλάχιστον δεν κάνει διακρίσεις,παρακολουθεί του πάντες.

Μετά τις αποκαλύψεις που έκανε ο Σνόουντεν, ότι οι εταιρείες (Yahoo, Microsoft, Google,κλπ) προσφέρθηκαν από την πρώτη στιγμή να συνεργαστούν με τις μυστικές υπηρεσίες Αγγλίας και Αμερικής αλλά επειδή φοβήθηκαν το κράξιμο που θα έτρωγαν από τους πελάτες τους μόλις υπήρχε κάποια διαρροή, ζήτησαν από τις κυβερνήσεις να τους "υποχρεώσουν" με νόμο να παραδίδουν τα δεδομένα από τους σέρβερ τους ώστε να μπορούν να επικαλεστούν αυτή την δικαστική εντολή (την οποία φυσικά έδωσε ο ανώτατος δικαστής των ΗΠΑ) μόλις θα γινόταν οποιαδήποτε διαρροή ότι έχουν τους σέρβερ τους ανοιχτούς σε NSA και GCHQ(η βρετανική ΝSA).

Η NSA δεν ήταν μόνη της σε αυτή την εξόρυξη δεδομένων,η GCHQ της Βρετανίας και οι ομόλογοι τους σε υπηρεσίες στον Καναδά, την Αυστραλία και τη Νέα Ζηλανδία ήταν όλοι μαζί στην επιχείρηση σε μια συμφωνία, γνωστή ως "Πέντε μάτια."

Όπως γράφει ο Harding, στην προσπάθειά της να κάνει τους Αμερικανούς πιο ασφαλής,η NSA έχει κάνει την αμερικάνικες επικοινωνίες λιγότερο ασφαλής και έχει υπονομεύσει την ασφάλεια του συνόλου του Διαδικτύου εισάγοντας μια" πίσω πόρτα "στο λογισμικό κρυπτογράφησης που χρησιμοποιείται για την προστασία των προσωπικών και εταιρικών δεδομένων,όπως αρχεία υγείας και οικονομικών συναλλαγών.

Ένα από τα πιο αποκαλυπτικά θέματα ήταν ότι ο γενικός διευθυντής της Εθνικής Υπηρεσίας Ασφαλείας, Keith Alexander ισχυρίστηκε ότι τα αμφιλεγόμενα προγράμματα μαζικής συλλογής δεδομένων στο εσωτερικό της χώρας είχε είχαν αποτρέψει τον εντυπωσιακό αριθμό των 54 τρομοκρατικών συνομωσιών,αφήνοντας να εννοηθεί ότι όλες αυτές εξυφαίνονταν στην Αμερική.

Όπως σημειώνει ο Harding,ο αναπληρωτής της Εθνικής Υπηρεσίας Ασφαλείας Chris Inglis στη συνέχεια παραδέχθηκε ότι μόλις μια ντουζίνα από αυτά τα χτυπήματα είχαν σχέση με τις ΗΠΑ. Ήταν επίσης ασαφής ως προς το αν αυτές οι συνομωσίες ήταν πραγματικές .Μερικές από τις αναφορές που έδωσε είχαν να κάνουν με οικονομικές δοσοληψίες.

Έτσι λοιπόν αυτοί που παραμόρφωσαν την αλήθεια που σίγουρα ήξεραν τι έκαναν,μείνανε ατιμώρητοι, ενώ το πρόσωπο που έφερε στο φως παρανομίες και αντισυνταγματικές δραστηριότητες,κατηγορείται ο προδότης.Πώς μπορεί αυτό να έχει νόημα σε μια δημοκρατία;
Σαφώς,οι εξελίξεις αυτές δεν είναι απλά απομονωμένα γεγονότα σε μια ιστορία γραφειοκρατίας που υπερβαίνει τις αρμοδιότητές της.Aυτό που ο Edward Snowden έφερε στο φως είναι ότι οι κυβερνήσεις των δύο κορυφαίων δημοκρατιών του κόσμου ενήργησαν σαν δικτατορίες.

Αντί να οδηγηθεί στη λήψη αυστηρών μέτρων,να σφίξει τα λουριά οργανισμούς που είπαν ψέματα και να συγκαλύψει πιο εξωφρενικά στραβοπατήματα τους,έσπευσαν να τους υπερασπιστούν.
Ανώτεροι αξιωματούχοι της βρετανικής κυβέρνησης κατηγόρησαν την εφημερίδα Guardian για προδοσία, σε τέτοιο βαθμό που ανάγκασε το προσωπικό της να καταστρέψει τους υπολογιστές με τα αρχεία του Snowden.Ταυτόχρονα, η κυβέρνηση των ΗΠΑ χρησιμοποιεί όλα τα διαθέσιμα μέσα για να εντοπίσει τον Σνόουντεν και να τον δικάσει.

Το πιο λυπηρό όμως είναι ότι δεν τον αποκαλεί μόνο η κυβέρνηση προδότη αλλά και ο απλός κόσμος.Η λαϊκή κατακραυγή δεν είναι και τόσο μεγάλη στις ΗΠΑ. Οι Αμερικανοί επιδεικνύουν μάλλον απάθεια,θεωρούν ότι είναι εντάξει να παρακολουθεί η κυβέρνηση τα μέιλ ή τα τηλεφωνήματά τους.Τελικά για τις καταγγελίες για την πλήρη παρακολούθηση ΤΩΝ ΠΑΝΤΩΝ ακόμα και του ίδιου του Ομπάμα από οποιονδήποτε υψηλόβαθμο πράκτορα της CIA σταμάτησαν να ασχολούνται τα κανάλια,αλλά για το πώς θα συλληφθεί αυτός που μας το γνωστοποίησε μας τα πρήζουν κάθε μέρα, για να μας πουν ότι όποιος τολμάει και αποκαλύπτει την αλήθεια και την παραβίαση της νομιμότητας θα κυνηγιέται μέχρι τέλους.

Το πρόβλημα με τους Αμερικανούς είναι ότι, ας τους παρακολουθούνε και πότε πάνε στην τουαλέτα ακόμα,έχουνε πραγματικά καταπιεί το τυράκι και τις μπαρούφες και την προπαγάνδα των γερακιών και του Fox,αλλά έτσι και προσπαθήσει κάποιος να περιορίσει τα όπλα και να δώσει δημόσια και -σχεδόν- δωρεάν υγεία για παράδειγμα, θα αρχίζουν να φωνάζουν για πραξικόπημα και για κομμουνισμό.

Κλασσικές ΗΠΑ

Ο κόσμος χρειάζεται ανθρώπους σαν τον Σνόουντεν.
Ένα άτομο λογικό με επιχειρήματα που κάνει επιλογές με βάση τη συνείδηση του και πάνω από όλα διαθέτει θάρρος.
Παραθέτω και κάτι ωραίο που έχει πει:
«Δεν θέλω να ζω σε μια κοινωνία που κάνει τέτοια πράγματα.Δεν θέλω να ζω σε έναν κόσμο όπου οτιδήποτε λέω, οτιδήποτε κάνω, σε οποιονδήποτε μιλάω, κάθε έκφραση δημιουργικότητας ή έρωτα ή φιλίας καταγράφεται...». Έντουαρντ Σνόουντεν
Ο άνθρωπος αυτός είναι ήρωας για μένα.
Προτρέπω τους πάντες να το διαβάσουν.Άλλωστε η ασφάλεια δεδομένων / υποκλοπή δεδομένων και συνομιλιών θα έπρεπε να μας απασχολεί όλους.

Αξίζει να δείτε και το ντοκιμαντέρ Citizenfour, που δείχνει το χρονικό των συναντήσεων του Έντουαρντ Σνόουντεν με τον δημοσιογράφο, Γκλεν Γκρίνγουολντ.Η ταινία αποτυπώνει τις γεμάτες ένταση ημέρες που πέρασε ο Σνόουντεν στο Χονγκ Κονγκ και τις εκμυστηρεύσεις του,στους δημοσιογράφους της Washington Post και της Guardian,πριν αυτοί προβούν στις γνωστές αποκαλύψεις για τις παρακολουθήσεις που προκάλεσαν το παγκόσμιο ενδιαφέρον.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the news broke late in May 2013 about a junior contract employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) who had fled to Hong Kong with a collection of top secret documents about US intelligence practices in his possession, I didn’t pay a great deal of attention. Nor did I think much of it when the first stories surfaced in the Guardian and the Washington Post that were based on the purloined documents. The headlines merely seemed to confirm what we in the public had learned from previous disclosures about widespread surveillance of US citizens by the NSA.

Then subsequent articles began making clear the previously unknown scope, depth, and character of the NSA’s prodigious abilities to scoop up unprecedented volumes of communications data all across the globe. I was shocked to learn that the US government had bugged the personal cellphones of Angela Merkel, Enrique Pena Nieto, Dilma Roussef, and dozens of other world leaders. My eyes bugged out when I discovered that the NSA was stealing all the data that coursed through the cables used by Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and other Internet companies. And I did a double-take when I learned that the NSA wasn’t alone in this global data-mining endeavor — that Britain’s GCHQ and their counterpart agencies in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were all in business together under an agreement known as “Five Eyes.”

Now, having read Luke Harding’s terrific new book, The Snowden Files, I know how much worse the problem is.

As Harding writes, “[p]aradoxically, in its quest to make Americans more secure, the NSA has made American communications less secure; it has undermined the safety of the entire internet” by inserting a “back door” into the encryption software used to protect personal and corporate data such as health records and financial transactions.

Clearly, these developments aren’t simply isolated events in a tale of a bureaucracy exceeding its brief (as bureaucracies are wont to do). In a larger sense, what Edward Snowden brought to light is that the governments of two of the world’s leading democracies acted more like dictatorships. Rather than clamp down on the rogue agencies that lied to conceal their most outrageous missteps even from senior elected officials, their leaders instead rushed to defend them to the hilt. Simultaneously, the US government used all available resources to track down Snowden and put him on trial for treason. Senior officials in the British government accused the Guardian of treason, too, and even at one point forced its staff to smash to bits the computers that were holding the files transferred from Snowden.

Treason? Really?

One of the most revealing episodes in this sad drama was the claim by General Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency, that the wholesale data-scooping had enabled the NSA to stop 54 terrorist plots. As Harding notes, “Alexander’s deputy Chris Inglis subsequently conceded that only about a dozen of these plots had any connection to the US homeland. Then he said that just one of them might have been disrupted as a result of mass surveillance of Americans. (He was also ambiguous as to whether the plots were real ‘plots;’ some of the citations he gave had more to do with financial transactions.)”

So, a four-star US general accountable for the actions of his 40,000-person agency publicly distorted the truth — almost certainly knowing what he was doing — and got off scot-free, while the person who brought to light his agency’s illegal and unconstitutional activities was charged with treason! How can this possibly make sense in a democracy?

Yet there are even broader implications to this story.

The surveillance state and the future of democracy
Assume, for the sake of argument, that Barack Obama spoke sincerely in his 2008 campaign for the presidency when he promised to ”strengthen privacy protections for the digital age and … harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of personal privacy.”

Contrast that with the president’s remarks in January 2014 on the subject of government surveillance, when he responded in a major address to the publication of the Snowden documents detailing massive privacy abuses by the NSA. He heralded a series of largely cosmetic changes in procedure but insisted “the men and women of the intelligence community, including the NSA, consistently follow protocols designed to protect the privacy of ordinary people.”

In other words, candidate Obama pledged to turn back some of the egregious abuses of Americans’ civil liberties introduced by the Bush Administration — while president Obama unapologetically defended them, just as he had in 2010 by signing the renewal of the notorious Patriot Act.

To my mind, this blatant turnaround reflects two major aspects of the new reality that now characterizes American government: first, that the president is not an all-powerful chief executive but must routinely accept as fait accompli much that has become established practice in the federal government, no matter how he might feel about it; and, second, that the intelligence establishment, lavished with unlimited funds and highly permissive laws by decades of protective presidents and compliant congresses, has grown out of control.

What does that say about the future of democracy in America?

Think about it. Read The Snowden Files – if only because Luke Harding is an excellent writer. This book reads more like a thriller than a work of nonfiction, and it’s clearly based on extraordinary access to many of the principals in the story.

And if you want to delve more deeply into the present-day reality of the US intelligence establishment, read Top-Secret America by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, and The Way of the Knife by Mark Mazzetti. Taken together, these three books paint a chilling picture of the intelligence establishment that has increasingly dominated America’s role in the world and, more recently, limited the scope of our freedom at home.

[Brett C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Luke Harding wrote a great account of how Edward Snowden came to be the most famous person back in 2013. The was written well and not boring by any means. Snowden began as a patriotic youth with the desire of becoming a US Army Green Beret only to wash out of Advanced Infantry School with a broken leg. Then without a degree/higher education he became a regular IT tech working for the National Security Agency (NSA). As time went on he became disenfranchised with what he saw and what he learned while working in the intelligence and surveillance community....it's all history from there.

Read it for yourself and see if he was a traitor and espionage mastermind, or did he act out of what he thought was right. Following his own moral compass...

I thought this was a good book and revealing to the whole Edward Snowden debacle of 2013. A recommended read! Thanks!

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[W]

Recently,I watched the 2014 movie based on this book.Director Oliver Stone has done a fine job with the movie,it kept my interest.

However,as another reviewer notes,it is a known fact that governments and particularly the US government are involved in a lot of digital surveillance,eavesdropping and snooping.

While he did highlight this issue by spilling the beans to the Guardian newspaper,Snowden ended up derailing his whole life and career.Wasn't that too high a price ?

The movie was interesting,I suppose the book will be,too.

[Darya Silman · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE SNOWDEN FILES: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE WORLD'S MOST WANTED MAN tells a modern-day Bond-style spy story with (spoiler alert!) an unhappy ending.

Who has yet to hear of Edward Snowden and his famous stay at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow? Edward Snowden has never aspired to be well-known or recognized. He aimed to expose the high level of surveillance by American and British intelligence agencies that stopped at nothing to gain access to information, one of the most precious items in today's world, while simultaneously neglecting safety measures to keep that information secret. Being a low and middle-level technician, he obtained thousands of documents pertaining to classified operations on both sides of the Atlantic. An idealist, Snowden believed the public needed to know how the government gathered large amounts of ordinary citizens' personal information: telephone contacts, likes, and comments on social platforms - without any specific court orders. Without alerting his family and partner beforehand, Snowden escaped to Hong Kong and contacted 'The Guardian' reporters.

The Snowden story (and the book that describes it) reads like a spy novel, with conspiracy theories, selfless investigative journalists, and corrupt governmental agencies. To give a broader understanding of the topic, Luke Harding explains in plain language the mechanics behind data gathering and provides snippets of political situations in different countries.

As this is my second book by Luke Harding, I know he can write better and more profoundly. Still, I can recommend THE SNOWDEN FILES to any thoughtful, social-media-using person. Are you sure you are safe from your intelligence services?

Ironically, while attempting to bring more freedom and transparency to ordinary people worldwide, Edward Snowden ended up in one of the most authoritarian countries. In 2022, he got Russian citizenship, forever chaining himself to Putin and his version of Russia. His revelations shook the public - and then came the silence. Was it all worth the exile from a homeland?

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Radio and TV coverage of the Snowden leaks were spotty. This book helped to fill in the details, background, and what happened since Snowden showed up in Moscow. Snowden himself, and his girlfriend Lindsay Mills, are fleshed out a little more, and I learned why an American would go to British journalists, the Guardian, with the information he had purloined. It turns out the British, specifically their top-secret telecommunications monitoring arm, GCHQ, collaborated with the NSA: “We have the brains: they have the money. It’s a collaboration that’s worked very well.” [Sir David Omand, Former GCHQ Director] No shortage of egoism and despotism to go around, then.

Snowden was a right-wing libertarian in early writings on the web as a user he called ‘TheTrueHOOHA’. It was frankly unsettling for me to read/listen to his thinking as a teen, and see his progression to action. To use his words, he would like to be viewed as a patriot who believes in the right to privacy enshrined in the U.S. constitution. When I’d first learned of his leaks, I was startled. Listening to his first interview on TV, I was admiring. After reading this book, I am unsettled.

Luke Harding, a Guardian reporter, outlines the Snowden action for us with a minimum of sensationalism but with some incredulity at the scope of the revelations. And the news is pretty sensational. Harding gives a little background into Snowden’s early development, and his foray into working as a U.S. government contractor specializing in the protection of U.S. government communications. Snowden’s amazed and amazing reach into the lives of others via their private data transfers must vindicate the paranoid. While I have my doubts that any world leader or business executive thought their telecommunications were truly secret, Snowden’s revelations are startling in the scope of the data collection and in the holes in the system, e.g., a relatively low-level contractor had access to the material.

I should probably state from the get-go that I do not fear my government. I grew up in an age where inaction was much more to be expected than action; incompetence and bureaucratic bungling was much more common than overreach. I was not subject to the kind of totalitarian control experienced in Eastern Bloc countries, the Soviet Union, or China, but we have those examples to know it can happen. I believe the president and his minions who claim that the government is not listening to the communications of private citizens. They simply do not have the capacity, nor the interest, to do that. However, they now apparently have the means, and individuals within governments can have a deleterious effect upon the stated objectives of government. Snowden has shown us a place where an individual might have an outsized effect to his purported role.

Knowing just what I know now, if I had to make a judgment on Snowden’s fate, I might say he should go to court congruently with the leadership of the NSA and the GCHQ. I don’t think it would have been possible for him to “go up the chain of command” to protest this data collection. It is ridiculous to contemplate that anyone would have listened to him, given the reaction from our fearless leaders upon learning of his revelations. But I wish things had gone differently…for him and for us.

I listened to the Random House Audio version of this title, very ably read by Nicholas Guy Smith. I had a look at the paper copy as well, and found it concise enough that the momentum never lagged. Since Guardian reporters were the ones that initially broke this story, it is reasonable that they are the ones to write the details of what happened and the follow-up. I can’t imagine there is a person out there who wouldn’t be interested in this topic. Inform yourselves. This is going to be a political topic for some years to come.

[Elina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Εντάξει...μια καταγραφή των γεγονότων. Σημαντικό ιστορικό γεγονός, αλλά δεν έχω άποψη για το θέμα και δεν γνωρίζω αν τελικά άλλαξε κάτι από αυτό που περιγράφεται τόσο Οργουελικά, ότι όλοι παρακολουθούμαστε από τα social media κλπ. Ξέρουμε κατά βάθος και χωρίς αδιάσειστες αποδείξεις ότι ισχύει, αλλά σκέφτομαι ότι ίσως όλο αυτό με τον Σνοόυντεν, να έγινε για να μας κοιμίσουν ότι όλα λειτούργησαν καλά και δεν μας παρακολουθούν πια. Ποιός ξέρει όμως την αλήθεια;

[Arun Divakar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life as we know it is now almost entirely on the internet. When we are not on the phone (which in itself is a rare thing), we are on the computer or the tablet swimming in the ocean of the internet. We live, play, work, love and trade on the internet and build our entire identities there. I will complete this review and post it on an online forum which is again an irony from the POV of the book. Imagine the kind of information that is available in the world of the internet, everything we have ever read and written, every financial transaction made, every phone call and video call is all out there for someone to grab and use if they have enough resources to do so.

The million dollar question is : is someone doing this snooping ? The world believed that this wasn’t until Edward Snowden came out of the woodwork and unveiled what the Germans called der shitstorm, the extensive reach of the American NSA in breaching online privacy. The kind of revelations that Snowden brought to the limelight has led to businesses, individuals and nations to rethink the extent of American penetration into their lives. This book is a chronicle of Snowden’s defection, his subsequent reveals with the help of The Guardian group and his subsequent exile.

The fact that Snowden who was a contractor with the NSA had such extensive access to the documents does itself question the access controls placed by the agency on its sensitive material. The book does not go into the details of how the documents were eventually smuggled out. Although in the trailer for Oliver Stone’s Snowden, Joseph-Gordon Levitt tosses something resembling a Rubik’s cube as he walks out of the security check. Snowden is introduced as a geeky young man who enlists in the army to be discharged for a broken leg and later with his formidable computer skills, he finds a job with the CIA. While initially he is a geek who is all gung-ho about his move into the cloak and dagger world of espionage, his move into NSA shakes him completely. According to The Guardian and Snowden, this was a period when he understood how much American intelligence had penetrated the world and all of it made him completely disillusioned. He moves to Hong Kong and with the help of the newspaper group begins to run a series of articles which expose the massive surveillance conducted by the US and UK on a post 9/11 world.

There followed a furore all over the world in which the world nations, the corporates and the common citizens angrily responded to the extent to which their privacy was violated. And yet if the book is to be believed, the Obama administration was strangely nonchalant and in denial mode all through this. There were a lot of hand wringing and impassioned pleas from the American side of the fence that all of this was done to counter another 9/11. It then came as a surprise to the law makers that even in the Congress, the opinion was divided on what good the increased amounts of spying into the lives of citizens was doing and also to whether the NSA really needed to be reined in. Not much has changed in the world and being the secretive organization it is, we don’t know what the NSA is up to now. The Snowden effect was more visible in terms of the steps that netizens adopted all over the world following the revelations. Technology companies and consumer electronics (read Apple) have made the encryptions stronger and hopefully made it difficult for the snoops to find their way into the maze of information. Research also points to the fact that terrorist outfits have made their digital security stronger too which sums up the fact that across the globe there is a heightened awareness of the need for systems which are tamper proof.

Snowden obviously became a global fugitive and is currently in Russia with another side effect being that to a section of the Americans, he is also a traitor. Post this book and my reading on this topic, I don’t find in Snowden a hero or a revolutionary. He is a symbol or more aptly a channel of communication which told the world to be on their guard. His morals or ethics are subjects to be debated about and since this book was published by The Guardian, they always treat their subject with a tenderness. But we need to step beyond him as an individual and come to terms with the extent to which the global intelligence network has spread. There is mention in the book of an operative who put his girlfriend on electronic surveillance after they had a spat and I fail to understand the threat to national security in such a case ! The term ‘abuse of power’ assumes gargantuan proportions when viewed at through such a prism. Also to note is the reaction meted out to the newspaper from the British authorities following the scoop which leads you to wonder about the freedom of the press.

A timely if not slightly dated book but still worth a read. Lesson learned is also that : Pretend it is the 1980’s and that there is no Wi-Fi, talk to another person instead of texting them !

[Jeanpierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of my generation, you will recall reading 1984 and Brave New World. The debate was how society might evolve toward some form of totalitarian control. In fact today both forms, drugs and invasion of privacy are complimenting each other to reach such goal. Snowden's book written by The Guardian's journalist shows how far this pervasive spying on everyone is been carried out through the internet, phone and all digital tools.

The point that Bin Laden knew that and did not even have a phone line to his house take away any argument that it is helpful to catch terrorist.

This is a book that all should read to be aware that everything written is read potentially by NSA staff. Hi NSA handier, hope you gave a good day.

[Yanper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Δεν είναι λογοτεχνικό βιβλίο είναι όμως αρκετά ενδιαφέρον. Σου δίνει μία ελάχιστη εικόνα από τον θαυμαστό κόσμο των μυστικών υπηρεσιών και του κατεστημένου. Βλέπεις πόσο μακριά έβλεπε ο Οργουελ και ανατριχιάζεις. Διαβάζοντας το δεν μπόρεσα να μην ξεκαρδιστώ στα γέλια ενθυμούμενος τις γραφικές αναρτήσεις στο ΦΒ, " ενημερώνω το ΦΒ ότι δεν επιτρέπω την χρήση των προσωπικών μου δεδομένων, φωτογραφιών, μπλα μπλα μπλα."Δεν ξέρω αν είμαστε τόσο αθώοι ή τόσο αφελείς.

[Vasilis Kalandaridis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Εξαιρετικό.Η πρώτη μου φορά που διαβάζω τέτοιου είδους βιβλίο.Έχει στοιχεία,ημερομηνίες,μαρτυρίες,κρίσεις,ερωτήματα,όλα.Και επιτέλους κατάλαβα τι ακριβώς έγινε στην υπόθεση Σνόουντεν,η τηλεόραση μάλλον μπερδεύει αντί να πληροφορεί.

[Chris Steeden · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘‘I am a senior member of the intelligence community …’ No name, no job title, no details. The Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, who was based in Brazil, started to correspond with this mysterious source. Who was he?’

I think nearly everyone in the world now knows who Edward Snowden is. After listening to Snowden on the Joe Rogan podcast I did a cursory search for any decent books on Snowden out there. My luck was in for sure. Luke Harding had written one. He is a very good investigative journalist. I have read a couple of his books. ‘A Very Expensive Poison’ is highly recommended. I knew all about the Snowden affair back at the time but only through news reports and articles. The podcast piqued my interest once more.

Snowden had access to highly classified NSA files. ‘They suggested the White House wasn’t just spying on its enemies (bad guys, al-Qaida, terrorists, the Russians), or even on its supposed allies (Germany, France), but on the communications of millions of private US citizens… There had never before been a big leak out of the National Security Agency. Everybody knew that America’s foremost intelligence-gathering organisation, based at Fort Meade near Washington DC, was impregnable.’

I am one of those people that does not use Facebook, Twitter or Tik Tok. My only real social media is Goodreads. Then I started thinking about how much we do use the internet. In our household we are always buying stuff online and have accounts with many online stores and I do my tax return online. There are e-mail and texts and WhatsApp. Then there are phone calls. To be honest any spying agency would be bored to tears with our electronic history, but I do understand why people are concerned. It is a slippery slope when agency’s do this without consent. ‘Between 2009 and 2012 Snowden says he found out just how all-consuming the NSA’s surveillance activities are: ‘They are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them.’ Should we be bothered? Yes. What they were doing was illegal and ‘violated the US constitution’. On that basis alone reform was needed. You cannot argue with the need to stop terrorism and to do that the NSA is needed more than ever but they need to keep within their remit to do that. Their tentacles had spread and there was no stopping them. It wasn’t just us, the ordinary person, that the NSA were spying on. It was their allies like Germany, ‘For 10 years the agency even bugged the phone of German chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s most powerful politician.’ France did not get away with it either. I am not naive enough to think France and Germany were not doing their own bit of snooping, but it appears that their surprise was the actual scale of the NSA trawling and data collection.

Like the two other Luke Harding books I have read this skips along at a fast pace and keeps your attention throughout. He just has a style of telling a story that makes you want to keep reading. He also goes over how the British are implicated. GCHQ works closely with the NSA. Partners if you will. The NSA pay GCHQ for the work they do with data collection. For all the illegality and bad ethics around this reading about spies, spying and double dealings it is just so darn interesting. I liked one story where the British set-up fake internet cafes at ones of these G20 meetings in London. The computers were equipped with key-logging software so when the delegates entered passwords the spies had them. That’s it. I’m applying to be a spy. Beware my Goodreads friends. I read your reviews.

Farewell my Goodreads friends as I head off into the sunset to become a man of mystery (sounds much more fun than being the actual whistleblower).

[Bria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Let's put aside the debate whether Snowden was right or wrong to release thousands of classified government documents and focus on what the outcome of this was. To me, the outcome (or reason for releasing the documents) is the real issue here.

Imagine you are in an airport, would you say the word "bomb"? Imagine you are on Google in your private home on your private internet, would you search "how to make a pipe bomb?" or "how to make a fertilizer bomb?". Probably not. And why? Because you are aware the government monitors you. You have learned this through friends, through TV and through the media. Did you know this before 2013 and Snowden? Of course.

Snowden's entire reasoning for whistleblowing was (1) The public needed to know what these documents contained and (2) That this would promote change across the globe. And I find that both of these reasons are unfounded and naïve.

Firstly, the American media (and media across the globe) had been reporting on this very same illegal spy activity since 2001. Harding gives many examples of articles and whistleblowers who all said the same things as Snowden and who came before him. Yes, Snowden brought more evidence and examples of this surveillance, but this wasn't really a new idea. I find it incredibly surprising that people, for example Snowden, thought the government didn't monitor the internet or phone lines. The minute the Patriot Act was signed and the government gave itself permission to spy and detain you whenever, this should have been a forgone conclusion. Companies spy on you before an interview, so do colleges before they give you an acceptance. We all spy on each other's Facebook pages. So why is this news? Answer, it isn't. What would be news if the 100 million phone calls the NSA gets from America and multiple other countries per day resulted in people being imprisoned, tortured and killed without reason. That would be scary. That would be a worthwhile reason to blow the whistle. Just telling people "Hey the government stores your emails along with literally millions of other emails that they can't sort through" is a pretty pathetic reason to become a whistleblower. Snowden didn't save any lives or uncover government labor camps or find mass graves or torture chambers. Those are what I would expect in a media story that is being compared to Big Brother, etc. Also, if you are concerned about the government reading your naughty emails to your mistress or lover, just get some low-grade encryption *according to Harding*. And to wrap this up, China, Russia, the Middle East, England, France, Italy, Germany, Brazil, etc. all have their own versions of this same spying network. Harding even mentions them in this book. This only difference here was, Snowden was tattling on the US not these other countries.

Secondly, Snowden's actions did not change anything. The NSA still exists, so does the Patriot Act (Obama re-signed it). If anything, the NSA is being offered more money. Harding talks about how the budget for the NSA has increased.

So if Snowden didn't promote change, didn't save anyone and didn't help the American public, why did he even blow this whistle? The answer, his own ideology. He believed that he should. That it was the right thing to do. So we can argue all day long on if this was 'right', but at the end of the day it wasn't to help people, it was to promote Snowden's libertarian and political goals.

I am giving this book this poor rating because the writing was just awful. It jumped around so much (sometimes in the same paragraph) that it was hard to follow. The blatant adoration of Snowden was also little to strong.

If you are interested in this topic, this really isn't an informational, unbiased read. But if you already know something about this topic and are interested in the pro-Snowden side, this is a good read.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew! What a ride!

I don't know what to say about this other than, it ought to be required reading (if even just for the simple fun of it). As far as thrilling reads, this qualifies. It's odd that this happened only a short while ago, yet it feels so distant and like some distant past. It's something that seems like it should be on the top of society's priorities, but it just isn't. There are far more urgent things at the moment, like attempted democratic coups, the world burning down around us, the coasts flooding, the economy the economy the ECONOMY. We've become distracted and have forgotten just how pervasive the governments have become in our everyday lives. Probably an NSA person will read this later tonight before they go to bed, somewhere between tea and a nice hot steam. Hi NSA person!

Anyways, good book. Very informative. Very disturbing - I only had a rudimentary understanding of the Snowden leak, and of how deep the surveillance went. Now I feel obligated to educate myself a bit more on this. I think we all should.

Onward.

[Sandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an informative book that makes important arguments about the relationship between practices of mass-surveillance and the role of the free press by laying bare such state interventions through Edward Snowden's revelations. The nature of this book is that it is journalistic rather than research-based or scholarly. As a consequence, the book doesn't offer sources but relies on Harding's retellings and his experience of working as a journalist for the British newspaper The Guardian. Nevertheless, I have found some of the things Harding shares with the reader inspiring in regard to my own interpretation of the events surrounding Snowden. What this book does well is to convey the urgency of adjusting international whistleblowing and journalistic freedom legislation to prevent the institutional targeting of individuals who chose to share information that belongs to the public.

[Nena♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tema me jeste zanimala ali ovaj stil pisanja je totalno novinarski, činjenice su samo hronološki izredjane i nikakav osećaj nemate dok čitate.

[James Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, I'd like to apologize for not posting earlier. I finished the book a couple of months ago, and have only recently found the time to write a review. As to the book, I appreciated it because of its perspective. In my opinion, I feel that the message is simple, concise and unbiased. As opposed to what you will get from the American mass media, the UK media etc., we are given an inside view of the thoughts and reasoning behind the actions of a young man who felt compelled to out what he felt were the disingenuous actions of the US and UK government. I respect the actions taken, after the regular channels had been exhausetd, to no avail. I am of the opinion that the great machine that is the government is neither concerned for nor respectful toward any action that does not preserve or strengthen it's agenda - to amplify and solidify the need for governance. This book laid out the details in an understandably chronological way, and from multiple perspectives as to lead the reader to make their own assumptions about the validity and motive of Snowdens' series of actions. What I found refreshing, was that for the first time in a very long time, I was able to read the details, without constantly being reminded by the mass media and the government, about how I was supposed to feel. The book was well done, to the point, and an easy read - never boring or lagging.

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great . . . if you're a journalist and like the fast-paced action and efforts by the Guardian to protect freedom of the press and the First Amendment. Curious that a newspaper in the UK is seeking protection of the First Amendment when the UK does not even have either a Constitution or Bill of Rights like we enjoy here in the US. It begs the question: Where was the US Press -- or the Fourth Estate -- when all this was happening under our noses? To ask the question is to answer it: asleep at the wheel. Suddenly Mr. Snowden's choice in seeking assistance from reporters with the Guardian looks that much more inspired and brilliant to me.

Otherwise, the book is "average" to "good" if you are just a plain ol' reader like me. Seemed to be a lot of self-aggrandizement by Mr. Harding and the folks at the Guardian. Makes Snowden out to be a "patriot" and not the "traitor" he is alleged to be. Sure makes the NSA and our politicians -- especially the White House -- as well as the politicians in the UK, look absolutely terrible with all their obvious lying to Congress, lying to each other, lying to the American, UK and world citizens, double-dealing, back sliding, and whatever other invective you wish to direct toward them.

Not "All The President's Men" but not a stinker either.

[Liza Vourdaha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Άπειρες πληροφοριες.Πολλα ονοματα,πολλες ημερομηνιες.Ακρως διαφωτιστικο σχετικα με την υπόθεση Σνοουντεν...Τα ΜΜΕ τελικα πιο πολυ παραπληροφορούν και καθοδηγούν παρα ενημερώνουν.

[Charity · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the Patriot Act first passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, I was part of a group that organized panel discussions and protests against the act. The kind of wholesale surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden was exactly the kind of thing, we feared, for which the Patriot Act paved the way. And although the consensus (as far as there is one) seems to be that the post-9/11 surveillance techniques of the NSA over-reach even the provisions of the Patriot Act, the law allowed for just a little hop-skip to the place where we are today. So, while my inclination is to say, "I told you so," no one really cares what I thought when the act was first passed so why bother saying it?

A commenter on the radio asserted that the U.S. is divided into two camps, those who think Edward Snowden is a hero and a patriot and those who think he's a traitor. I would argue there's a third camp of people who know his name but don't know anything else about him, but the division is the source of the point I'm trying to make. I've been inclined to think of Snowden as a hero from the beginning, and I'm even more inclined to think so after reading The Snowden Files. I'm also inclined to ask my many computer-savvy friends for advice on encryption software for my laptop. Not because I'm engaged in illegal activities, but that's the whole point: the NSA is hoovering up data from everyone, not just from suspected terrorists. If I pissed off someone in the government, I'm sure they could come up with enough evidence from my internet search history and my library records to cobble together a case against me, or against anyone.

The thing I don't quite understand is why more people---myself included---aren't totally up-in-arms (figuratively speaking) about Snowden's revelations. Why are so many of us just going about business as usual? Is it because we assume we have nothing to hide, and so we're leaving things be and letting it up to the journalists to be targeted as terrorists for reporting government actions that flout our rights under the Constitution? Or is it because we already assumed we had no privacy and so this new information doesn't really bother us? As one friend puts it, "I assume they already have all of my information anyway."

But about the book: I enjoyed this book. It was a pleasant (if disturbing) read. I admit, I skimmed the "Shoot the Messenger" chapter in which Harding goes into detail about the inner workings of British government. I'm still an American, after all, and hearing about what happens in other countries kind of makes me glaze over. I was astounded, however, at the grounding of the flight of the president of Bolivia when he was suspected of smuggling Snowden out of Russia (he didn't, btw). No wonder some other countries think of the U.S. as a big bully throwing its weight around.

So, my next action is to procure Greenwald's book about the contents of the Snowden leaks, and to maybe buy myself a typewriter and start visiting people in person more often rather than calling or e-mailing.

[Colibri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ο Luke Harding, έκανε μια εκπληκτική δουλειά, συγκεντρώνοντας όλο το υλικό σε ένα ενιαίο κείμενο. Ένα συναρπαστικό αφήγημα, με γρήγορο ρυθμό, το οποίο διαβάζεται απνευστί. Συστήνεται ανεπιφύλακτα!

«Δεν θέλω να ζω σε έναν κόσμο όπου οτιδήποτε λέω, οτιδήποτε κάνω, σε οποιονδήποτε μιλάω, κάθε έκφραση δημιουργικότητας ή έρωτα ή φιλίας καταγράφεται...»

«Βλέπεις πράγματα που ίσως είναι ανησυχητικά. Όταν δεις τα πάντα συνειδητοποιείς ότι ορισμένα από αυτά τα πράγματα είναι καταχρηστικά. Η αίσθηση περί αδικίας ενισχύεται. Δεν υπήρξε κάποιο συγκεκριμένο πρωινό [που να σηκώθηκα αποφασισμένος ότι δεν πάει άλλο]. Ήταν μια φυσιολογική διαδικασία»

«...οι κατασκοπευτικές υπηρεσίες της Δύσης έδειχναν να μην αντιλαμβάνονται την ευρύτερη εικόνα: ότι το κράτος τώρα πια συνέλεγε αδιακρίτως τις επικοινωνίες εκατομμυρίων ανθρώπων, χωρίς τη γνώση ή τη συγκατάθεσή τους.»

«Τα ζόμπι ήταν όλοι εκείνοι που δεν γνώριζαν ότι το iPhone πρόσφερε στην υπηρεσία κατασκοπείας νέες δυνατότητες παρακολούθησης που δεν μπορούσε καν να φανταστεί ο αρχικός Μεγάλος Αδελφός. Οι "καταναλωτές" ήταν τα ανεγκέφαλα πειθήνια στρατιωτάκια του Όργουελ.»

«Στην αντιδικία για το ποιος ελέγχει το διαδίκτυο, οι άνθρωποι της NSA έδιναν μια δυσοίωνη απάντηση: "Εμείς".»

«Στην εποχή της κυριαρχίας των δεδομένων, η υπηρεσία μετατοπίστηκε από το ειδικό στο γενικό· από τη στοχοποίηση στο εξωτερικό σε εκείνο που ο Σνόουντεν χαρακτηρίζει ως "καθολική, αυτόματη, μαζική παρακολούθηση".»

«Οι Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες πραγματοποιούν ενέργειες αντικατασκοπίας χρησιμοποιώντας πληθώρα μέσων. Ένα από τα πλέον αποτελεσματικά είναι η συνεργασία με εμπορικούς φορείς για την απόκτηση πρόσβασης σε πληροφορίες μη διαθέσιμες με άλλον τρόπο»

«Το Facebook αποκάλυψε ότι το τελευταίο εξάμηνο του 2012 έδωσε τα προσωπικά δεδομένα 18 με 19.000 χρηστών σε διάφορες κρατικές υπηρεσίες των ΗΠΑ, όχι μόνο στην NSA αλλά και στο FBI, σε ομοσπονδιακές υπηρεσίες και σε τοπικές αστυνομικές αρχές.»

«Θεωρητικά είμαστε ανεξάρτητο κράτος. Πρακτικά όμως όχι».

«...τα προγράμματα των μαζικών παρακολουθήσεων της NSA που αποκάλυψε "δεν μας παρέχουν ασφάλεια". Σύμφωνα με τα λεγόμενά του: «Τραυματίζουν την οικονομία. Τραυματίζουν τη χώρα μας. Περιορίζουν τη δυνατότητά μας να μιλάμε και να σκεφτόμαστε και ��α ζούμε και να είμαστε δημιουργικοί, να έχουμε σχέσεις, να συναναστρεφόμαστε ελεύθερα... Υπάρχει τεράστια απόσταση ανάμεσα στα νόμιμα προγράμματα, στη θεμιτή κατασκοπεία, στη σύννομη επιβολή του νόμου όταν είναι στοχευμένη και βασίζεται σε θεμιτές εξατομικευμένες υποψίες και ενέργειες βάσει εντάλματος, και στην καθολική μαζική παρακολούθηση που θέτει ολόκληρους πληθυσμούς κάτω από κάποιο μάτι που βλέπει τα πάντα, ακόμα κι όταν δεν χρειάζεται».

[Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I harbor substantial feelings about Edward Snowden, but this review isn't about my personal feelings, it's about Luke Harding's work. So whether you view Snowden as a hero, or a traitor, I think this book is worth your time and attention.

The text is accessible, the information is intriguing, but the book is bias, and its subjective slant mars what would have been an enjoyable reading experience. And I feel this is a tragedy to some extent, as the subjective angle was unnecessary. This would have easily been a 4-star book if the narrative had retained an objective tone. As a reader, I do not appreciate when an author blatantly paws at me with their agenda. Clearly Harding is pro-Snowden. Okay, this is fine and dandy. But Harding's subjectivity is a constant source of readerly irritation. Mr. Harding, don't "tell" me how I should feel, allow the reader to come to this place independently.

Harding presents some Snowden background, insight as to whom and why Snowden contacted in the early stage of his information leak, and some airport scrambling. Harding also touches on what some of the Snowden files reveal, and the global reaction to these revelations.

Despite my dislike for rather one-sided narratives, I've no reservations recommending this book to anyone interested in learning a bit about Snowden and the subsequent reaction to his decision to leak NSA files.

Audiobook:
Nicholas Guy Smith gives a strong and intimate reading. He has an English accent, and while I found his pacing a touch slow, I quite enjoyed his narration.

[foteini_dl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Το ότι οι κυβερνήσεις των χωρών των χωρών-με πρόσχημα την πάταξη της τρομοκρατίας-παρακολουθούν απλούς πολίτες μέσω e-mail, τηλεφώνων κλπ δεν είναι αυτό που συντάραξε. Μάλλον θα πρέπει να είσαι αφελής για να πιστεύεις πως κάτι τέτοιο δε συμβαίνει. Το σπουδαίο που προέκυψε απ΄αυτήν την υπόθεση, ήταν ότι κάποιος έφερε αποδείξεις (φέρνοντας στην δημοσιότητα απόρρητα έγγραφα της NSA) γι' αυτήν την κατ' εξακολούθηση παρακολούθηση. Είναι τρομερό πως μπορούν να καταλάβουν όχι μόνο ποιος είσαι, τι κάνεις,πότε το κάνεις, αλλά και ποιοι αποτελούν τους ανθρώπους με τους οποίους συναναστρέφεσαι σε καθημερινή βάση. Και καταλαβαίνεις ότι δεν είσαι πουθενά ασφαλής, μιας και έχουν στις υπηρεσίες τους εταιρίες που όλοι χρησιμοποιούμε λίγο-πολύ καθημερινά (facecook, google, yahoo, apple μεταξύ άλλων). Ζούμε σε μια οργουελική κοινωνία (βλέπε 1984) και όχι ελεύθερης έκφρασης.
Εξαιρετικό βιβλίο, που διαφωτίζει μια υπόθεση που τότε συντάραξε πολλούς σε όλο τον κόσμο, αλλά τώρα μοιάζει να έχει ξεχαστεί (λες και το πρόβλημα αυτό δεν υφίσταται πλέον). Το βιβλίο θυμίζει ένα καλογραμμένο πολιτικό θρίλερ, σαν αυτά του John Le Carre, που έχει ξεπηδήσει από το Β' ΠΠ.
Αν θέλετε να έρθετε παραπάνω σε επαφή με την υπόθεση αυτή, πέρα από το βιβλίο προτείνω το ντοκιμαντέρ Citizenfour της Laura Poitras και την περσινή συνέντευξη του Snowden στον κωμικό (που κάνει καλύτερα τη δουλεία των δημοσιογράφων από πολλούς δημοσιογράφους) John Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVly...)

[Timthast · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Story was fascinating and horrifying at the same time. I followed the Edward Snowden storey in the news but was not aware of the sheer enormity of the snooping done by the NSA and GCHQ (in the UK) that he uncovered.
Which is to say literally billions of phone calls and emails by pretty much all Americans and Brits and a large part of the planet, foreign leaders and close allies, US companies, Foreign companies that had nothing to terrorism. Building in back doors to encryption software, going to and getting upfront buy in from all the major tech companies - Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL. . . to just hand over their data on us, and not just "when subpoenaed but just because".

All very unconstitutional (in the US). Supported by pretty much the entire government establishment from Bush, to Obama.

I came to it with an unclear idea of Snowden. Was he a good guy or a bad guy. I came away seeing him as a hero who sacrificed his personal liberty to blow the whistle on and hopefully change some of this horrendous behavior.

I would have given this a higher ranking but I found the narrative to be a bit disjointed. At times it would go off into side stories and provide WAY too much detail on certain things.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scary, more frightening than a horror movie. The uncovered truths, revelations, lies that the U.S. and British governments have weaved is beyond belief. EVERYONE is spied on, no one is immune by the machinations of the NSA and GCHQ. Spying on the President of Brazil, spying/listening to Angela Merkel's private phone messages, millions of American, Latin, European, Middle Eastern and Asian citizens - no problem. We have become entrapped in a survilence state where these agents are so paranoid ! Anyone who uses technology ( almost everyone of us to some degree ) i.e. - utilization of the internet, mobile phones, skyping, etc., etc. is NOT IMMUNE !

What horrible lives we must live in the 21st century for this to happen to us !

Edward Snowden is a hero that has revealed the underbelly, sophistication and all encompassing survelance (spelling?) that average citizens were not made aware .... until now.

[Lino Matteo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Snowden Files
Luke Harding
2014


While this is a story that needed to be told…it is almost too Hollywood to believe. BIG BROTHER is here and most people accept that it is justified for our safety. But what is safety without freedom?
Who is afraid of the first amendment? Why those with and in power of course, for they do not want that power threatened.
There is a good magazine article in this book. Unfortunately the material is thin and repetitive for a 300+ page book.
So while it is a story that needed to be told, I would have liked more graphics and fewer words.
Thanks
3 stars.



Edward Snowden was a 29-year-old computer genius working for the National Security Agency when he shocked the world by exposing the near-universal mass surveillance programs of the United States government. His whistle blowing has shaken the leaders of nations worldwide, and generated a passionate public debate on the dangers of global monitoring and the threat to individual privacy.

In a tour de force of investigative journalism that reads like a spy novel, award-winning Guardian reporter Luke Harding tells Snowden’s astonishing story—from the day he left his glamorous girlfriend in Honolulu carrying a hard drive full of secrets, to the weeks of his secret-spilling in Hong Kong, to his battle for asylum and his exile in Moscow. For the first time, Harding brings together the many sources and strands of the story—touching on everything from concerns about domestic spying to the complicity of the tech sector—while also placing us in the room with Edward Snowden himself. The result is a gripping insider narrative—and a necessary and timely account of what is at stake for all of us in the new digital age.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I1ZKA56/...

Notes:
12: Snowden used the word ‘panopticon.’ …Jeremy Bentham. It describes an ingenious circular jail….
EN: Time to reread 1984
13: Even President Obama conceded the debate was overdue and reform was required.
15: Nothing at last is scared but the integrity of one’s own mind ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
47: Snowden’s partner, Lindsay Mills….
52: …that inside the NSA there’s a lot of dissent…
56: Snowden chose the handle ‘Verax’, a classical Latin adjective meaning ‘truth-telling’
59: Snowden was one of around 1,000 NSA ‘sysadmins’ allowed to look at many parts of the system.
60: Five days later Mills removes her blog. She also wonders publicly about deleting her Twitter account….”To delete or not to delete?” she tweets.
63: Greenwald lives in Miranda’s Brazilian coastal home…
65: Some have called this digital ecosystem outside mainstream publishing the Fifth Estate…
67: PGP encryption software…
73: Presidential Policy Directive 20, a top secret 18 page document issued in October 2012….
76: He (Snowden) was very worried about his friends and family being implicated.
81: Ewen MacAskill, a 61 year old Scot and political reporter…
102: Island of Harris…
87: Five Eyes…the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and USA
102:
One cannot hope to bride or twist
Thank God! He British journalist
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there ‘s no occasion to. ~ Humbert Wolfe’s epigram
107: Of course it was an illegal operation. But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism.
111: America is fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends, to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics. ~ Snowden
112: GCHQ is worse than the NSA
121: Nobody takes our calls anyway. So we have literally nothing to lose in terms of access ~ Guardian US
140: Obama added that it was impossible to have 1005 security and 100% privacy. We have stuck the right balance.
147: I have no intention of hiding who I am, because I know I have done nothing wrong. ~ Snowden
152: Then suddenly Snowden became a global phenomenon
Page 155: All of the Signals All of the time
157: So between them Britain and the US play host to most of the planet’s burgeoning data flows.
172: British journalists do not enjoy the constitutional free speech protection of their US counterparts.
174: The special US courts that dealt with intelligence matters met in secret.
195: Until they become conscious, they will never rebel ~ George Orwell 1984
196: “ON January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984”
107: The zombies were the public, unaware that the iPhone offered the spy agency new snooping capabilities beyond the imagination of the original Big Brother.
108: Apple joined in October 2012 – exactly a year after Job’s death.
Leaked PRISM documents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(...
214:…Tor, the popular tool to protect online anonymity.
238: …simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice…that it must be seen to be done.
EN: #TheSnowdenFiles showed the world that FEAR had triumphed over reason in America and further eroded America’s claims to world leadership.
EN: Assume the NSA is going to read anything you write – including this memo – in Canada, USA, France or elsewhere. Govern yourself accordingly. Is this the new rules of the game?
279: You come here often. #NSApickuplines’. EN: It is only funny if you see the point and not the question mark. Period.
284: …Amash came from the libertarian wing of the (Republican) party.
300:…it would be a long time before Snowden saw home again.
329: ‘Even in Siberia there is happiness.” ~ Anton Chekhov, In Exile
331: …that the programs of NSA mass surveillance don’t make us safe. They hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and to live and be creative, to have relationships, to associate freely…. ~ Snowden
333: He was a guest of the Russian Federation, whether he lived it or not. And in some sense its captive. No one knew how long his exile might last…
#TheSnowdenFiles Luke Harding

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Luke Harding's The Snowden Files is a well-constructed overview of the biggest intelligence leak in history - but it is not without its flaws.

The Guardian journalist tells a detailed story of Edward Snowden - from his childhood in a military, Republican family, his short education and brief, failed army career, to his meteoric rise through the intelligence services that eventually enabled him to turn whistleblower.

It's an intriguing tale. Far from being a left-wing radical, Snowden is a staunch supporter of libertarian politician Ron Paul, "whose views are well to the right of many Republicans", as Harding puts it. Snowden acted out of a sense of patriotic duty to the US constitution and his outrage at it being repeatedly violated by a government in love with its technological advantage over other nations.

Harding's book is a real page-turner and he tells the story from many angles - but a glaringly absent voice is that of Snowden. Readers may get the feeling that - as with Harding's previous book on WikiLeaks' Julian Assange - he has rushed the book out to beat the protagonist to the chase.

Harding seems unable to help himself from making repeated digs at Assange along the way. The most unforgivable is his criticism that Assange is reckless because "six months after the first stories appeared based on US diplomatic cables, Julian Assange released the entire un-redacted cache of documents". Harding fails to mention that Assange released the cache only because the encryption key had been published without his approval - in Harding's book.

Readers may also balk at Harding's use of pejorative adjectives, so typical of the corporate media. China is "communist China", Russia is "Vladimir Putin's Russia" and Assange is the "self-styled" editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. Similarly, Bolivia's president Evo Morales is "an indigenous Indian, who had struggled to read his inauguration speech".

There are also moments of corporate media pretension and smugness that may turn the stomach. Harding notes that the New York Times's cafeteria "hums" with "intelligent chatter". When he writes about Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger taking a break from the Snowden investigation at a crucial point, he says: "Rusbridger himself was due to go off to his regular summer ‘piano camp’ in the Lot Valley in central France. He had recently published a book entitled 'Play it Again', an account of how he had combined demanding editing duties and the WikiLeaks story with learning Chopin’s most exacting work, ‘Ballade No. 1’... Rusbridger decided he might as well still go, despite all the dramas. He boarded the Eurostar train bound for Bordeaux. At first it was hard to concentrate on music. Soon, however, he immersed himself completely in Debussy." This and similarly excruciating passages about Rusbridger may leave readers wondering whether Harding is praising his boss or taking the piss out of him.

All this does not mean Harding's book should be avoided. It is well-researched, well-written and he makes plenty of salient points. "[T]he Snowden files show that the NSA [National Security Agency] cheated," he writes.

"Despite the political defeat on back doors, the agency simply went ahead and secretly introduced ‘trapdoors’ into commercial encryption software used by millions of people... By inserting deliberate weaknesses into encryption systems, the agency has made those systems exploitable. Not just by government agencies, who may be acting with good intentions, but by anybody who can get hold of encryption keys – such as hackers or hostile intelligence agencies. Paradoxically, in its quest to make Americans more secure, the NSA has made American communications less secure; it has undermined the safety of the entire internet."

However, readers may wish to wait instead for Snowden to write his own book. After all, Harding quotes the documentary maker who Snowden first contacted, Laura Poitras, as saying the whistleblower is "an amazing writer". "His emails were good," says Poitras. "Everything I got read like a thriller." Buying a book written by Snowden would also mean your money would probably be funding the whistleblower's legal fees, rather than Harding's Hertfordshire lifestyle.

Most depressing, however, is that for all Snowden's sacrifice and The Guardian's undoubtedly hard work, little will probably change. "[B]y 2014 it seemed that the most of the programs exposed by Snowden would carry on," writes Harding.

A well-used sales technique is to give customers a false, high price for a product and then sell it to them at the "reduced" price, so they don't feel so bad about departing with their money. Because Snowden's leak has revealed so much detail, the effect may be that when it comes to surveillance, people are no longer shockable - and don't feel so bad about departing with their secrets. Tellingly, Harding notes that after the outrage over German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone being hacked, "French reaction was milder than in Germany" when it was revealed France's leader had also been hacked. The intelligence services will undoubtedly go on breaking any new laws that are introduced.

Harding says Snowden, now in exile in Russia, still trusts encryption. But others may follow the lead of Indian and Russian diplomats, who are not so sure. Struggling to come up with any alternative, they have started using typewriters and holding conversations while strolling outdoors. The bitterest irony is that such practices will make them even less accountable.


Here are some memorable quotes...


The zombies were the public, unaware that the iPhone offered the spy agency new snooping capabilities beyond the imagination of the original Big Brother. The ‘paying customers’ had become Orwell’s mindless drones.

The NSA can hoover up photos and voicemail. It can hack Facebook, Google Earth and Yahoo Messenger. Particularly useful is geo-data, which locates where a target has been and when. The agency collects billions of records a day showing the location of mobile phone users across the world.

Another slide says that the NSA has ‘real-time reporting capability’. In other words, the agency is notified each time a target sends an email, writes a text, begins a chat, or even fires up their computer.

In 2002 only a small fraction of international internet traffic went via non-US routes.

The philosophical currents that waft through Cupertino and Palo Alto are libertarian and anti-establishment, a legacy of Silicon Valley’s roots in the hacker community. At the same time, these firms vie for government contracts, hire ex-Washington staff for the inside track and spend millions lobbying for legislation in their favour.

Google prided itself on its mission statement ‘Don’t be evil’; Apple used the Jobsian imperative ‘Think Different’; Microsoft had the motto ‘Your privacy is our priority’. These corporate slogans now seemed to rebound upon their originators with mocking laughter.

But in October 2013 it emerged there was indeed a back door – just one that the companies involved knew nothing about.

In a Q&A with Guardian readers while in hiding in Hong Kong, Snowden himself said: ‘Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.’

The White House had defended the ‘human right to seek asylum’ but was now denying him that option, Snowden said, complaining: ‘The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon … In the end [it] is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised – and it should be.’

[Snowden:] 'Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.'

[T]he Hamburg-based news magazine Der Spiegel revealed that the NSA routinely harvests the communications of millions of Germans. In an average month it collects around half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages. On a normal day this includes 20 million telephone calls and 10 million internet exchanges. On Christmas Eve 2012 it collected about 13 million phone calls, the magazine reported. Sometimes the figures are higher.

The NSA’s core mission was national security. At least that was the idea. But by the end of 2013 it appeared that the agency’s intelligence-gathering operations were about something much simpler – global power.

Merkel, it transpired, wasn’t the only foreign luminary whose phone the NSA had hacked. An NSA memo from 2006, published by the Guardian, showed it was bugging at least 35 world leaders. The agency had appealed to other ‘customer’ departments such as the White House, State and the Pentagon to share their ‘Rolodexes’ so it could add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to the NSA’s surveillance system. One eager official came up with 200 numbers, including the 35 world leaders. The NSA immediately ‘tasked’ them for monitoring.

Ironically enough, Merkel picked up the phone, called Obama and asked him what the hell was going on. The president’s reply was a piece of lawyerly evasion; Obama assured her that the US wasn’t bugging her phone and wouldn’t do so in the future. Or as White House spokesman Jay Carney put it: ‘The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor.’ It didn’t take an Einstein to work out that the White House was saying nothing about what had happened in the past.

By early 2014 it was clear that the ramifications from Snowden’s revelations were far greater than those caused by WikiLeaks. The publication of secret US diplomatic cables from around the world in late 2010 did have consequences. A handful of US ambassadors were forced to depart; others shifted posts; the cables fed into the Arab Spring, crystallising popular resentment against corrupt regimes in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Not all of the consequences were negative. Paradoxically, the reputation of the US foreign service went up. American diplomats, broadly speaking, emerged as intelligent, principled and hard-working. A few had genuine literary talent.

Instead, the debate in Australia was a depressing echo of the one in Britain, with some politicians and Murdoch-owned newspapers attacking the media that broke the story.

David Cameron found himself the target of veiled criticism. He declined to say whether GCHQ had been involved in top-level bugging, or if he had seen a readout from Chancellor Merkel’s mobile.

European parliamentarians voted for tough new rules on data privacy... The proposal, an explicit push-back against PRISM... also proposed the right of EU citizens to erase their digital records from the internet, as well as big fines for firms that broke the rules... (In the end Britain came to the US’s rescue, with Cameron persuading EU allies to postpone any new rules until 2015.)

Either way, Snowden’s disclosures seemed to have triggered what Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt dubbed the ‘Balkanization’ of the internet. What was supposed to be a universal tool was in danger of becoming fragmented and ‘country-specific’, he warned.

Perhaps the most unexpected corollary of the Snowden affair was the return of the typewriter. After discovering that the NSA bugged its diplomats, the Indian government turned to old technology. From the summer of 2013 the Indian High Commission in London began using typewriters again. Nothing top secret was stored in electronic form, high commissioner Jaimini Bhagwati told the Times of India. Diplomats had taken to strolling outside: ‘No highly classified information is discussed inside the embassy building. And it’s very tedious to step out into the garden every time something sensitive has to be discussed.’ The Russians had reached the same conclusion. The Kremlin’s super-secret Federal Protection Service (FSO) – a branch of the FSB, that some believe is guarding Snowden – put in a large order for typewriters.

In the wake of Snowden, attitudes towards the intelligence community were changing for the first time since 9/11.

The magazine quoted former intelligence officials who said morale inside the NSA was low. The scrutiny following Snowden’s leaks, coupled with budget cutbacks, meant that the spies were ‘hurting’, one said.

‘The trouble with MPs,’ this senior politician admitted, ‘is most of us don’t really understand the internet.’

Lobban replied with his favourite analogy – the haystack. He said: ‘We don’t use our time listening to the telephone calls or reading the emails of the vast majority.’ Instead, GCHQ was engaged in ‘detective work’. It needed access to ‘an enormous haystack’ – the communications on the internet – in ‘order to draw out the needles’.

The previous week Sir Tim Berners-Lee – the man who invented the internet – had described the UK–USA’s secret efforts to weaken internet encryption as ‘appalling and foolish’.

If governments, officials and spy chiefs wanted to kick newspapers, that was their prerogative [said Alan Rusbridger]. But they should consider what the next leaker might do in the absence of professional journalist outlets. He or she might just dump everything out on the uncensorable worldwide web. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ the editor warned.

And he [Snowden] returned to his chief theme: that the programs of NSA mass surveillance he exposed ‘don’t make us safe’. In his words: ‘They hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and to live and be creative, to have relationships, to associate freely …'

Snowden also wrote that ‘my act of political expression’, as he termed it, had led to a heartening response around the world, including ‘many new laws’...

The NSA could bug ‘anyone’, from the president downwards, he said. In theory the spy agency was supposed to collect only signals intelligence on foreign targets, known as SIGINT. In practice this was a joke, Snowden told [journalist Glenn] Greenwald: it was already hoovering up metadata from millions of Americans. Phone records, email headers, subject lines, seized without acknowledgement or consent. From this you could construct a complete electronic narrative of an individual’s life – their friends, their lovers, their joys, their sorrows.