Edward Snowden to publish memoir titled 'Permanent Record' about mass surveillance

Snowden to detail 'crisis of conscience' that led him to blow the whistle

Edward Snowden in connection from Russia during the Wired Next Fest 2019 at the Giardini Indro Montanelli on 26 May, 2019 in Milan, Italy. (Rosdiana Ciaravolo/Getty Images)

Edward Snowden will release a memoir chronicling his time in the US government and his decision to leak highly classified documents related to mass surveillance.

Permanent Record will be published on 17 September 2019 by Pan Macmillan in the UK and Metropolitan Books in the US.

The former CIA agent and National Security Agency (NSA) contractor made headlines in 2013, when he released thousands of documents and transformed the debate about government surveillance around the world.

According to Pan Macmillan, Snowden will be “bringing the reader along as he helps to create this system of mass surveillance, and then experiences the crisis of conscience that led him to try to bring it down”.

Notable revelations included a massive program collecting metadata on millions of domestic phone calls. Snowden, who faces US charges that could land him in prison, is currently living in exile in Moscow. He has been widely condemned by intelligence officials, who allege that Snowden has caused lasting damage to national security, and defended by civil libertarians and other privacy advocates who praise Snowden for revealing the extent of information the government was gathering.

“Edward Snowden decided at the age of 29 to give up his entire future for the good of his country,” John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan, said in a statement. “He displayed enormous courage in doing so, and like him or not, his is an incredible American story. There is no doubt that the world is a better and more private place for his actions. Macmillan is enormously proud to publish Permanent Record.”

Edward Snowden's memoir, 'Permanent Record', will be published on 17 September, 2019. (Pan Macmillan)

Financial details were not disclosed for a book that was itself a secret project, quietly acquired a year ago by Macmillan and identified under code names in internal documents.

Snowden’s primary contact with the publisher was his principal legal advisor, Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

“Publishing Ed Snowden has been a remarkable learning experience,” Sargent told The Associated Press. “The complexities of internet security today have been eye-opening.”

Snowden’s story was told in part in the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour and in the Oliver Stone movie Snowden.

Additional reporting by agencies