A teleconference with former US intelligence officer Edward Snowden is taking place in Berlin right now. It is organized by Die Zeit newspaper. The man whom the United States outlawed is being asked questions about his new book, his memoir Permanent Record. In addition to the technical side of the matter — how exactly American intelligence gains access to letters and photos of a billion people, even when the gadgets are turned off — Snowden shares the exciting details of his story. He hid mini-discs with data inside a Rubik's Cube, he twisted his boss around his little finger frankly saying he was "stealing secrets", he walked out of his girlfriend's life but she found in Russia and married him.
Mikhail Antonov will continue on.
If you decide to download this book on the internet or just try to find some term or person’s name mentioned in it, you will end up in a database of the US National Security Agency. This will happen even if you pay for it with your credit card. The author warns about this at the end of his book, but it seems appropriate to put the warning on the cover, just like cigarette manufacturers are forced to do. It won't affect the sales. After what Edward Snowden told the world, it is unlikely that any of the readers will have any illusions they can protect their personal space and interests from the attention of American intelligence agencies.
The name of the book is Permanent Record. It's Snowden’s story about how a young man who went to serve the state after 9/11 and turned into a public enemy, a public informant, who, in his homeland, in the United States, faces an unfair trial and life imprisonment.
Edward Snowden: "The most important fact to the US government and this is the thing we have a point of contention on, is that they do not want the jury to be able to consider the motivations. Was it what I did better for the United States? Or did it cause harm?"
Before the release of the book, he talks a lot with the press, but not as much as in the summer of 2013. That's when he became famous worldwide. The former CIA and NSA IT specialist handed over secret documents to the Washington Post and the Guardian that revealed the technology of global surveillance that the United States conducted against its opponents and allies: competing services, politicians, corporations, ordinary citizens — everyone is watched. When Merkel sends a message, it's immediately read by the Americans.
Snowden was wanted, hiding in Hong Kong. He was accompanied by Sarah Harrison, an employee of the WikiLeaks website, which publishes scandalous revelations. The founder of the website, Julian Assange, accused of several crimes, had been using asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than a year. Snowden also decided to flee to Ecuador. The president there sympathized with him. The flight from Hong Kong was through Moscow. At Sheremetyevo, Snowden found out that his passport had been canceled. This is how he became a political refugee in Russia, another resident of Moscow — a huge and strange city, he said.
Edward Snowden: "Wherever I go, I try to change my appearance a little. I can get rid of my beard or put on other glasses. I never liked the cold until I realized a hat and a scarf can give you the most comfortable and unsuspecting anonymity. I change the rhythm and speed I’m walking and, contrary to my mother’s wise advice, I look at the opposite direction of the traffic when I cross the road.”
I do it to avoid getting caught by dashcams. Snowden is afraid that his compatriots might track him down and kidnap him. He's afraid of surveillance via social media. The publication of the book provoked a new discussion in Europe about the need to grant Snowden refuge in Germany or in France. He would be fine with it but he understands that, in the current situation, only the Russians can guarantee his safety.
Edward Snowden: "Here are circumstances where countries don't have to do anything to do the right thing. All they have to do is not hand me over. Even despite the fact that Russia was, probably the hardest place in the world for the CIA to operate, I didn't go, "alright, this is great, let me out of the airport." I was stuck in that airport for 40 days. I applied for asylum in 27 countries around the world.”
In the winter of 2014, he was first visited by his beloved woman — Lindsay. She then moved to Moscow as well. Two years ago, they secretly married in a Russian ZAGS office. His wife helps him to socialize — they go to the Tretyakov Gallery and the Bolshoi Theater.
But if in the summer of 2013 Snowden managed to get to Ecuador, he would now be sitting in the next cell with Julian Assange, who, after the change of power in the country, was thrown out of the embassy into the hands of Anglo-Saxon justice.
Mikhail Antonov, Alexander Korostelev, Andrey Putra, Vesti, from Berlin, Germany.
