by Luke Harding
First published 2014
Edward Snowden sits at his computer terminal in Hawaii, a system administrator with access to the NSA's most classified programs. Born in 1983, the former CIA employee discovers the true scope of American surveillance operations. Millions of emails, phone calls, and messages from ordinary citizens worldwide flow through NSA databases. Government leaders like Merkel and Hollande find their communications intercepted. Tech giants Google and Facebook face systematic hacking. Snowden makes his choice in June 2013, leaking documents to The Washington Post and The Guardian. The FBI issues an arrest warrant. He runs, eventually securing political asylum in Russia by August 2013. Guardian correspondent Luke Harding reconstructs this explosive story without direct access to Snowden himself, drawing from existing information to trace the whistleblower's motivations, methods, and escape. The narrative reveals how NSA spying operations spiraled beyond control, capturing data from potential enemies and innocent civilians alike. At its heart, this remains a story about one man's decision to sacrifice everything for what he believed was right.
Genres: crime, biography-memoir, 21st-century, espionage, government, current-affairs, activism, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: government-corruption, sacrifice, true-story
Setting: Hawaii, Russia, United States
Period: 2013
287 pages · Hardcover · Nieuw Amsterdam Uitgevers