Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Permanent Record: How One Man Exposed the Truth about Government Spying and Digital Security
Edward Snowden blows the whistle on state secrecy for a younger readership
SNOWDEN-INSPIRED: 2013 Berlin demonstration against PRISM, code name for a programme used by US National Security Agency (NSA) to trawl information from US internet companies [Mike Herbst/Creative Commons]

PERMANENT Record, Edward Snowden’s 2019 memoir, full of the seamy details of state corruption that can get a whistleblower in trouble, has just been released in a young readers’ edition.

It’s squarely aimed at a young readership and has all the stuff they love in a book — adventure, fighting tyrants, young love, righteous parental moral homilies, unspeakable mum and dad divorce, ideals turned dystopic — along with with a fascistic capitalism portrayed as a nearly indestructible cyborg.

The book follows Snowden’s childhood years through to September 11 terror attacks wake-up and how he became a whistleblower.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
CPUSA
Book Review / 16 October 2025
16 October 2025

RON JACOBS is enthralled by an account of the surveillance and political repression on the left in the US

8computerdata
Features / 2 October 2025
2 October 2025

Digital ID means the government could track anyone and then limit their speech, movements, finances — and it could get this all wrong, identifying the wrong people for the wrong reasons, as the numerous digital cockups so far demonstrate, warns DYLAN MURPHY

William Blake by Thomas Phillips, 1807 / Public Domain
Culture / 21 July 2025
21 July 2025

MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s dissection of William Blake