Permanent Record: Edward Snowden
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I wish I could share what it was like being an NSA employee when the Snowden story broke, but I won’t compromise any rules or laws and have to submit everything I write to the NSA for pre-pub review. What I have written is working through the process and, if you’re interested, please click here to sign up for updates.

For now, I want to talk about is Edward Snowden’s book, Permanent Record. Summed up:

Snowden’s releases showed the NSA and intelligence community engaged in proven illegal and perversion of their charter and authorizations that, after public exposure, led to a national review from Congress and the Whitehouse.

I never expected to learn much new about the leaks nor did I, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. What I wanted was to resolve a decade-old incongruity.

On one hand, I knew that Snowden never reported issues to NSA oversight, the DoD, Congress, or any other official channel that would have kept him out of jail. And, to hear the NSA tell it, he was an unhinged narcissist who leaked for pride reasons more than any real sense of civic duty (that’s the gist anyway). Together, it gives a very clear image of a leaker – someone who simply thought they knew better than everyone else and didn’t care who got hurt so long as they got their 15 minutes of fame.

On the other hand – in every interview, every soundbite, every public post – I can’t recall a single thing Snowden has said that I disagreed with. I find him to be extremely well-spoken and a consistent champion of non-techs who are assaulted constantly with government and business overreach. Most importantly, time proved him right – the NSA was illegally collecting information on average Americans.

Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. --Edward Snowden, Permanent Record, pg 162

So which was it? Was Snowden a hero? A whistleblower? A pride-filled leaker? After reading his version of the story, here are my impressions:

Early life and career

The first 50 pages or so cover his childhood which I skimmed, but did learn that Snowden’s background was similar in many ways to my own. Not in terms of family drama (of which he had more than most deserve), but in terms of hobbies, love of computers, and falling asleep with our heads on the keyboard after late nights of computing. He’s also a fan of Japanese animations and took language classes as a result (and we both noticed a weirdly high rate of art and design majors in our classes).

Snowden, the man, the legend, the myth

Early in his computing life, he had a neat accomplishment where he caught a national laboratory using poor web server security, though I feel like making minor changes to a web address doesn’t really count as “hacking". Eventually he started his career in the Intelligence Community (IC); something he referred to as being a “spy" despite working jobs that, like mine, were far less world-changing and far more like attacking water with a spoon to keep the Titanic afloat.

I honestly was put off by the way he presented himself as something akin to the Forrest Gump of the IC – always somehow part of the elite and responsible for most major and notable events during his career. I suppose it’s possible (I wasn’t there), but it seemed consistently overstated. What wasn’t overstated was… pretty much everything else. For example:

• How the government/corporations have perversely conditioned most people to beg for privacy, hat in hand, rather than justifying their worsening violations of our innate rights.
• How disgusting it was watching DNI Clapper lie to Congress and how Congress was derelict in their duty when they didn’t call him out on it.
• That, even if Snowden didn’t report issues through proper channels, those “proper channels" aren’t how anything gets resolved – it’s where issues go to die.
• That the NSA has a bad habit of hiring people only to have them sitting around doing nothing of value – sometimes for months – even years – at a time.
• The way they use federal contractors (at great cost to both budget and national security risk) to bypass hiring limitations.
• The deep vanity of some upper managers who think org chart height equals “rank" and complain about “breaking the chain of command" if you escalate issues past them (even if you properly went to them first).
• And finally (and most importantly), the hostility to whistleblowers – something I experienced first-hand when my clearance was revoked on a custom blend of information that was skewed, desperate, and invented.

It’s easier for an institution to tarnish a reputation than to substantively engage with principled dissent – for the IC, it’s just a matter of consulting the files, amplifying the available evidence, and, where no evidence exists, simply fabricating it. --Edward Snowden, Permanent Record, pg 295

About Leaking

Following Snowdengate, the NSA responded poorly with one exception: they created a presentation for the workforce outlining rebuttals to Snowden’s claims. Among those were:

1. He was clinically narcissistic and did what he did for personal pride, not national pride.
2. He never reported the issues to the NSA and never gave them a chance to handle it.
3. He flew to our two greatest adversaries with the data which is not something an innocent person does.
4. He exfiltrated data far beyond the scope of the programs in dispute – stuff that seemed intended to harm US interests and the NSA more than help the public.

On the first one, I definitely got a sense of narcissism when he talked about himself, but hardly to the degree the NSA proposed. The vast majority of the book is simply a tale of his exposure to the dysfunction (and illegal activity) of the IC mixed with the immense pressure and emotional damage of his decision to leak. Most importantly, even if he’s narcissistic, that doesn’t make him wrong.

What does make him wrong was bypassing any of the reporting and oversight offices. I can say with near 100% certainty, that nothing at all would have come of it if he had, but if you want to avoid jail and earn the label of “whistleblower", that’s the process.

But even in the best possible case, the whistleblower process of today is not where you go to get attention and change, it’s where issues go to die silently and unnoticed. For actual impact, Snowden wasn’t wrong that he’d have to come in like a meteor. Sure, he’d burn up on entry, but he’d light up the IC on the way down.

One might argue that his accomplishment in bringing this program public and the advances in freedom and accountability that followed make a strong case for a pardon and retroactive whistleblower status, but I had two key reasons I couldn’t agree.

The first is his choice to fly to China-controlled territory and Russia. However, the book outlines very plausible reasons why Hong Kong was the best choice at first. As for Russia, that was supposed to be a pit stop, but his notoriety made getting through Russia without incident impossible (as we clearly saw). I also think that his claim of destroyed the encryption key for the data after giving it to journalists is plausible as well. So, for now, I consider those points generally resolved.

My one remaining hesitation is this: to my knowledge, Snowden left with data far beyond the scope of the problematic programs at hand. It’s suspicious and it’s strange (if true)… but… I’ve faced the NSA exaggerating and fabricating information several times in my career – the most recent resulting in revocation of my security clearance and subsequent job loss.

Maybe the agency was honest in their summary of the data he leaked and maybe it was overblown. Until we have strong leaders in Congress or the Whitehouse to dig into this issue and get a real answer, there’s really no way to know for sure.

Final Impressions

It was pretty wild reading about someone who’s IC journey matched mine in so many ways.

I worked in the same building he had █████. I walked the long tunnel under the pineapples in Hawaii. I’d been forced to read nearly 1000 pages of pre-access documents when I was a system admin. And I saw how clearly apathetic the agency was if you actually read or learned anything before getting that access.

I’ve felt the frustration of working for an agency that should do better and be better than it was. I’ve faced retaliation and security investigation for speaking out. While it may be nothing close to the harassment that his poor girlfriend (now wife, hooray!) faced after Snowden ended up on the news, I’ve had my life put on hold for months and held in purgatory while expenses, fear, and depression wrestled for dominance. And, like Snowden, I am determined not to let all of that stop me from exposing the abuse and dysfunction of the NSA.

We swore and oath to the constitution – one that states that “We the people…" should be sure in our right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". That means calling the NSA out when they go too far.

Despite that, I noticed that Snowden never calls for the NSA to be torn down or disbanded. He never argues they don’t serve an important function. He simply believes (as do I) that, whatever the NSA does, it should be legal and limited in scope as much as practically possible. That means they shouldn’t possess massive and permanent databases of information on non-threats. They shouldn’t be able to hide the details of these programs from their overseers. And, most important of all, they should protect and streamline the vital oversight function of whistleblowing, not retaliate and penalize those that try.

Whistleblowers can be elected by circumstance at any working level of an institution. But digital technology has brought us to an age in which, for the first time in recorded history, the most effective will come up from the bottom, from the ranks traditionally least incentivized to maintain the status quo. --Edward Snowden, Permanent Record, pg 184

Unscrewed: The Consumer's Guide to Getting What You Paid For: Burley
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This book is very similar to another of my favorites: How to Complain for Fun And Profit, but the difference is that the complain book is about getting resolution for being treated badly, bad customer service, or otherwise making a case for why a company should consider giving you a break/a pass/or exception.

Unscrewed is a lot more aggressive, but effective in situations where a company owes you something, but refuses to comply. It's not for the weak of heart, but it does give you techniques to get resolution quickly and effectively as long as you are willing to hold their feet to the fire.

For those who are resolute not to be taken advantage of, this is a must have.

Spychips: How Government And Major Corporations Are Tracking Your Every Move: Katherine Albrecht
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RFID technology is incredibly convenient. Imagine making it possible to make your clothes, your car keys, and even items in the fridge talk to sensors in your house. You'd always know where your socks are, never lose your keys, and be able to take inventory of your fridge with a quick scan from your phone. All of this is possible now with RFID, but it also assumes that no one is using it maliciously.

Spychips explains not only what is possible, but what is happening now where companies are testing and evaluating uses for RFID that are creepy, invasive, and downright wrong. Like many other advances in tech, we can't stop RFID and shouldn't either, but we do need to make sure it's used responsibly and that requires understanding the threat.

Part of our dysfunctional culture is that dissent too often is regarded as form of disloyalty, of not being a team player. Yet to say nothing is tacit consent. Those who desire deep and durable change in our “corporate” culture need to gain the mature understanding that sometimes one’s most harsh critic is one’s most sincere friend.

–E. Writer

Employees are allies, not the adversary

Inside the US’s most secretive spy agency, dedicated employees protect our national security interests while suffering a level of toxicity that could send nuclear lizards tap-dancing through downtown Tokyo. Whether granting multi-million-dollar boondoggle contracts or forcing adoption of therapy-inducing tools and processes, employees watched helplessly as posturing and promotion bullets drove decisions instead of collaboration with stakeholders and the literal world-class experts at hand.

In my book, Are You Listening? Lessons in Waste, Abuse, and Mismanagement from the Agency that Doesn’t Listen, you will read the combined stories of nearly 700 employees whose vital feedback was met with blank stares, silence, or retaliation ranging from lost promotion to revocation of security clearance. Stories about trauma-inducing investigations; rampant unaddressed harassment; and soul-crushing politics.

In the world’s first (probably) leadership book from the perspective of what not to do, you will learn how a culture of deafness leads to morale chasmic enough to draw paying tourists and wasted dollars numerous enough to fill it back up. Most of all, you will learn how every attempt to express good intentions/authenticity or boost morale will fail if you shut down the single, most important channel of feedback you have: your own employees.

Sign up for mail updates for the publishing of Are You Listening, Lessons in Waste, Abuse, and Mismanagement from the Agency that Doesn't Listen and get a complimentary copy of my promotional mini-book, Reflections on an NSA Career!

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The Gift of Fear : Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence: Gavin De Becker: 9780316235020: Books
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Ever had a "gut feeling". Have you ever felt irrationally afraid of a person or a place? What if you learned that fear is a protective mechanism and that paying attention to it could save your life or the lives of your loved ones?

This book is all about intuition (though they call it fear). He doesn't offer any apologies, no theology, or theories, just the simple fact that intuition, whatever it is, exists. And if you pay attention to it, you can prevent some bad, bad things.

My favorite example from the book (paraphrased):

Say you're waiting for the elevator and when the door opens, there's a single man inside. For no reason that you can identify, you feel suddenly very afraid to get in the elevator. "That's stupid", you say to yourself. "I have no reason to be afraid of this person. I'm just being irrational."

Which makes more sense? To get into a sound-proof metal box with a stranger who makes you feel fear, or to wait for the next elevator and risk offending said stranger?

Learn why fear is valuable to protect your personal safety and that of the ones you love.

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness: Ramsey
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I have heard of the philosophy of not needing a credit history or credit cards, but never really believed it could work for me until I read this book. Ramsey describes many carefully planted myths about money and money management that hurt normal people and benefit companies and how our ignorance of this is killing us financially. We are trained by meticulous marketing techniques to live a lifestyle that will keep us in debt forever (a lesson I've lived personally).

Read this book to get a practical and easy-to-implement plan that will get your personal finances under control. Stop wasting money, stop worrying about the future, stop being a slave to your debts. And, yes, I'm debt free and have been for more than four years now. Never again.

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts: Chapman
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Does this sound familiar? Married person X comes home to Spouse X and hands them a gift with a grin. Spouse X looks in disgust at the gift, and says "What is this? How much did it cost? You know we can't afford to waste money!" Sad isn't it? This is a love language problem where one expresses affection through gifts and the other very obviously doesn't.

If that didn't sound familiar, what about these phrases:

Reading this book was quite literally life-changing for me. It's one of those things that divides your life into before and after:

• Before, I didn't know my brother is a "Physical Touch" person and needs to hug me when we first see each other after a long parting. Now that I know this, I can let him do it without feeling uncomfortable or making him feel uncomfortable. It's really improved a situation that used to be very awkward for us.
• My mother-in-law had a problem with a co-worker who would always buy her small trinkets (kind of like how a cat brings dead animals to your doorstep when they like you). She didn't know how to handle it so I told her about the book. I explained what it meant to be a "Gifts" person and some tips for handling it and the awkward situation cleared up.
• Now, when someone is trying to express love or affection (romantic or not), I can more easily recognize it and react/reciprocate appropriately.

The key is that without this knowledge, you may feel you've done everything in the world to make someone feel special and appreciated, but they don't because you're just speaking the wrong language! To learn more, click the book's pic above.

The Definitive Book of Body Language: The Hidden Meaning Behind People's Gestures and Expressions: 9780553804720: Pease
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I suppose some people are naturally good at reading others, but that's definitely not me. I bought this book to learn what people might be telling me without words and it was a huge help! Since reading it, I've been paying a lot more attention to the signs and signals given off by my co-workers and it's amazing what I can read without them even knowing.

Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane): de Becker
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All parents face the same challenges when it comes to their children's safety: whom to trust, whom to distrust, what to believe, what to doubt, what to fear, and what not to fear. De Becker helps parents find some certainty about parents' highest-stakes questions:

• How can I know a baby-sitter won't turn out to be someone who harms my child?
• What should I ask child-care professionals when I interview them?
• what's the best way to prepare my child for walking to school alone?
• how can my child be safer at school?
• How can I spot sexual predators?
• What should I do if my child is lost in public?
• How can I teach my child about risk without causing too much fear?
• what must my teenage daughter know in order to be safe?
• what must my teenage son know in order to be safe?
• And finally, in the face of all these questions, how can I reduce the worrying?

What this book actually does is teach you how to listen to your intuition and stop living in denial. DeBecker found that many instances of child abuse by neighbors, babysitters, and dare care providers were preventable if the parents had just paid attention to the little signals.

For example what if the old man nextdoor starts giving your young daughter candy, but only if she'll kiss him on the cheek first. You say to yourself, "he's just lonely, it's harmless". But if you have to rationalize a behavior, that means you see something wrong! It's a real eye-opener and something I would highly recommend for all parents.

How to Complain for Fun and Profit

When you’re ready to scream, "I’ve had it up to here and I’m not going to take it anymore", you’re ready for How to Complain for Fun and Profit, the best guide ever to how to write complaint letters to airlines, hotels, merchants, manufacturers and more. Yes, you’ll learn how to vent your spleen. but much more importantly, Bruce Silverman will teach you how to get something back for your troubles - everything from free airline tickets, luxury hotel suites and south sea cruises to thousands of dollars in cash!

One of the most frustrating situations is when you have been nailed by some company and just don't know what to do about it. The fact is that if you know the simple skill of writing the complaint letter, you can save a lot of frustration and time.

In this book, you learn how to draft your position such that it's a convincing plea for them to make it right rather than ignore you. Venting may be satisfying, but not productive. Getting a lawyer is costly and often isn't necessary.

The main reason I like this book is that I've already discovered some of the techniques in here, but there's several I didn't know. This book is full of actual letters he's written as well as the exact results. Benefit from his experiences and see some results with a minimum amount of your time and attention.

To read more about the book, go to their page (note that it's an E-Book and you'll just download it rather than receive a hard copy).