Whistle-blower Edward Snowden describes ‘crisis of conscience’ in new memoir
- Book titled Permanent Record will be released simultaneously in more than 20 countries on September 17, including the US, Germany and Britain
- Former National Security Agency contractor, who faces US charges that could land him in prison, is currently living in exile in Moscow
Whistle-blower and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has written a memoir. The book by the man whose leaks of classified documents transformed the debate about US government surveillance is coming out on September 17.
Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers, announced on Thursday that Snowden’s Permanent Record will be released simultaneously in more than 20 countries, including the US, Germany and Britain.
According to Metropolitan, Snowden will describe his role in the accumulation of metadata and the “crisis of conscience” that led him to steal a trove of files in 2013 and share them with reporters. Metropolitan spokeswoman Pat Eisemann declined to offer additional details.
Snowden noted in a tweet on Thursday that the book would be released on Constitution Day and added that he had “just completed an international conspiracy across 20 countries, and somehow the secret never leaked”.
In a short video posted the social media platform, he said: “Everything that we do now lasts forever – not because we want to remember, but because we're no longer allowed to forget. Helping to create that system is my greatest regret.”
Snowden, who faces US charges that could land him in prison, is currently living in exile in Moscow and promotion in the US is likely to be restricted to interviews done by remote.