Asked if shopping for his memoir would get one on a spy listing, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden chillingly replied that everybody in the world is on the “list” and there are no innocents in the age of mass surveillance.
Responding to a reader who joked that purchasing Snowden’s e-book ‘Permanent Record’ might need put him on a listing of individuals to be spied on, the exiled former intelligence contractor mentioned in all seriousness that everybody is being spied on regardless.
“Systems of mass surveillance strive to record all people, in all places, at all times. The question is no longer ‘Am I on the list?’ it is ‘What’s my rank on the list?’,” Snowden tweeted on Wednesday.
The former NSA and CIA contractor turned a family identify in 2013, when he revealed the extent of surveillance by the ‘Five Eyes’ community of US and its allies. He fled to Hong Kong forward of being charged with espionage and ultimately discovered asylum in Russia.
The US authorities reacted to the publication of his memoir by submitting a civil lawsuit looking for to confiscate all proceeds from it, on grounds that it violates his nondisclosure settlement with the NSA and the CIA. This solely helped the e-book change into an immediate best-seller.
Snowden has repeatedly made the case that everybody is being spied on no matter whether or not they have been really engaged in any wrongdoing.
“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say,” he mentioned throughout a dialogue on Reddit in May 2015.