Permanent Record

My latest check-out from the public library is The New York Times bestseller, Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden.

As Wikipedia states, it is ...

a 2019 autobiography by Edward Snowden, whose revelations sparked a global debate about surveillance .... The book describes Snowden's childhood as well as his tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and his motivations for the leaking of highly classified information in 2013 that revealed global surveillance programs. Snowden also discusses his views on authoritarianism, democracy and privacy. The writer Joshua Cohen is credited by Snowden for “helping to transform my rambling reminiscences and capsule manifestoes into a book.”

I'm not far into it yet but it's really interesting so far. Here's just a bit from near the beginning that resonated with me ...

What makes a life? More than what we say; more, even, than what we do. A life is also what we love, and what we believe in. For me, what I love and believe in the most is connection, human connection, and the technologies by which that is achieved. Those technologies include books, of course. But for my generation, connection has largely meant the Internet.

Before you recoil, knowing well the toxic madness that infests that hive in our time, understand that for me, when I came to know it, the Internet was a very different thing. It was a friend, and a parent. It was a community without border or limit, one voice and millions, a common frontier that had been settled but not exploited by diverse tribes living amicably enough side by side, each member of which was free to choose their own name and history and customs. Everyone wore masks, and yet this culture of anonymity-through-polyonymy produced more truth than falsehood, because it was creative and cooperative rather than commercial and competitive. Certainly, there was conflict, but it was outweighed by good will and good feelings - the true pioneering spirit.

You will understand, then, when I say that the Internet of today is unrecognizable ...

That's how I felt about the Internet too when I first started computing with a loner from my sister, the Macintosh Classic.

I recommend the book!