Ed Rampell.

• Author: Rampell, Ed
• Position: BOOKS

In early twentieth-century Russia, Leon Trotsky theorized about "Permanent Revolution." More than 100 years later, another revolutionary, exiled in Moscow, has given us an account of how he shook the world in his Permanent Record (Metropolitan Books).

The tide of uber-whisdeblower Edward Snowden's memoir is derived from his theory that the surveillance state is permanently recording everyone globally through the use of digital technology, thus "creat[ing] a perfect memory" of what they do and say. And this was all being done without anybody's consent or knowledge--until Snowden, an ex-CIA/NSA operative, blew the whistle on the intelligence community's warrantless bulk collection of ordinary citizens' communications.

Born in 1983 as the brave new cyber-world began, Snowden eloquently recounts growing up a computer geek in North Carolina and the Beltway (ironically near the NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland). The son of a court clerk and Coast Guard engineer, Snowden traces his ancestry to the Mayflower and Revolutionary War patriots; his grandfather is Rear Admiral Edward Barrett.

Descended from men who "fought in every war in my country's history," Snowden enlisted in the army following the attacks of 9/11, but was waylaid by a basic training injury and ended up using his cyber skills...