Edward Snowden Announces Memoir 'Permanent Record'

Over the past several years, numerous books and films have been made and written regarding spy turned whistleblower Edward Snowden who, in 2013, leaked the largest cache of highly classified information in history. There has been much debate and speculation over Snowden’s actions, and now it has been announced that he is set to tell his side of the story in a memoir entitled Permanent Record.

As The Guardian reports, the book is due to be released on September 17 in over 20 countries, and will feature Snowden’s account of how he leaked the classified information, the events that followed, and why he felt in necessary to expose the US Government’s plans for mass surveillance both at home and abroad. The book will be published by Macmillan, a representative of which stated the book will see Snowden “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.”

“Edward Snowden decided at the age of 29 to give up his entire future for the good of his country,” said John Sargent, Macmillan’s chief executive “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.”