On Tuesday, September 17th, in several countries around the world simultaneously, Edward Snowden's autobiography hit the shelves. Its title is "Permanent Record". The Russian translation will be titled "Personal File" as it will be presented in November by the Eksmo Publishing Company.
Edward Snowden is an American programmer and former employer of the CIA and NSA who has already spent five years in Russia where he first came in transit on his way to Latin America but then settled down after the US government deprived its citizen of his passport. The reason behind it was that Snowden disclosed the greatest secret: America created a system for digital surveillance with the purpose of hearing anything that is said in phone conversations around the globe and reading any text messages or e-mails.
On the condition that Snowden would not lead anti-American activity in our country, Russian granted him asylum as a righteous defender in an act of humanism. Over his five years with us, Snowden has married, found a job, which is not related to intelligence activity, and has now published a book. It has already been proclaimed to become a classic in the West. Perhaps it's because, apart from the shocking information about the total surveillance system, which has been deployed by America all over the world, Snowden is reflecting on the dramatic change of the cultural environment that modern humanity lives in. It's not the arts that I'm talking about now, it's the wide notion of a cultural environment where the limits of what's acceptable are shifting towards something else.
If you need an example, we can borrow it from another autobiography that was also published this week. Its author is American actress Demi Moore. She's now 56 years old. This is how she looked when she appeared in Los Angeles to present the film Corporate Animals with her in a starring role. She looks chic. She's wearing a short dress covered in pinhead flashy print and a metallic collar crowned by frills. She’s carrying a golden purse and has party stiletto sandals with narrow straps on her feet. Large dangling earrings matched her outfit very well too.
So, in her latest book, titled "Inside Out", Demi Moore talks about her sexual experiments that ruined her family life. When her husband Ashton Kutcher proposed to her to have a threesome, and brought his female friend to their home, Demi Moore agreed, as she wanted to seem open and fun. But when Kutcher started bringing his mistresses home while she was on the film set, the situation dramatically changed. Demi Moore writes that her husband didn't feel any guilt about it, as he said that the threesome had redefined his limits of what's acceptable. That's how their family life was demolished.
The whole culture of modern life serves as a test of the limits of what's acceptable. The limits are what made Snowden reflect that.
Here's what he wrote: "In 2012, on Constitution and Citizenship Day, I read the document itself to refresh it in my memory. I was surprised to see that almost half of the Bill of Rights was aimed at preventing the state from conducting surveillance on its citizens, namely the Fourth Amendment".
"The Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon profitable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".
At that point, Snowden saw as clear as day that the CIA and the NSA, or the National Security Agency, where he worked, have definitely redefined the limits of what's acceptable, while their activity directly contradicts the United States Constitution. And Snowden eventually did what he did. Sacrificing himself, he told humanity the truth about the total system of global surveillance that was arranged by the United States.
As he knows where the limits are, Snowden doesn't cooperate with Russian intelligence agencies, and, for the sake of preservation of the limits of the acceptable, the presentation of his book takes place in several countries at once, including Germany and the USA, on September 17th. This date was chosen for a reason. It's the USA's Constitution and Citizenship Day. In the book, Snowden expresses his regret that it's not a public holiday in the United States.
