In a journal and FBI files shared as part of her Whitney Museum exhibit, Laura Poitras finally turns her lens of observation onto herself.
Permanent record
"In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on Earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it. Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the account of a bright young man who grew up online - a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet's conscience."--Jacket
README.txt: a memoir
While working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq for the United States Army in 2010, Chelsea Manning disclosed more than seven hundred thousand classified military and diplomatic records that she had smuggled out of the country on the memory card of her digital camera. In 2011 she was charged with twenty-two counts related to the unauthorized possession and distribution of classified military records, and in 2013 she was sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison. The day after her conviction, Manning declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition, seeking hormones through the federal court system. In 2017, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and she was released from prison. Manning recounts how her pleas for increased institutional transparency and government accountability took place alongside a fight to defend her rights as a trans woman. Manning details the challenges of her childhood and adolescence as a naive, computer-savvy kid, what drew her to the military, and the fierce pride she has about the work she does. This powerful, observant memoir will stand as one of the definitive testaments of our digital, information-driven age. -- adapted from jacket
She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, Employee Says
Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce, uneasy about peering into the most intimate parts of other people’s lives.
The Ex-Google Hacker Taking on the World's Spy Agencies
Morgan Marquis-Boire is the director of security for First Look Media, the most prolific publisher of Edward Snowden's remaining secrets. His daunting task is to safeguard those documents, as well as the communications of reporters with perhaps the press's most adversarial relationships with Western intelligence agencies.
Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden
He let Americans evaluate omniscient domestic surveillance for themselves
"Pushed into the Shadows": Evidencing Digital Surveillance Chilling Effects and the Erosion of the Rights to Freedom of Assembly and of Association
SummaryThe United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Gina Romero, presents "Pushed into the Shadows: Evidencing digital surveillance chilling effects and the erosion of the rights to freedom of assembly and of association". This Global Study documents the profound impact that pervasive digital monitoring exerts on fundamental public freedoms. Moving beyond traditional privacy-centric narratives, the Study details how contemporary surveillance ecosystems induce serious chilling effects.
Google is building a search engine for fact checks - Poynter
From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.
Pluralistic: Surveillance vs guillotines (11 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
In the summer of 2013, two esoteric, technical, incredibly important texts were published within weeks of one another: the first is the Snowden leaks, which revealed a system of global, pervasive digital surveillance; the second was Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century, a book about the economic inevitability (and political instability) of oligarchy:
Pluralistic: Surveillance vs guillotines (11 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
In the summer of 2013, two esoteric, technical, incredibly important texts were published within weeks of one another: the first is the Snowden leaks, which revealed a system of global, pervasive digital surveillance; the second was Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century, a book about the economic inevitability (and political instability) of oligarchy:
A Catalog of an Entire House/Life
In a period of four years, Belgian photographer Barbara Iweins took a photo of every single thing in her house, “from my daughters torn sock to my sons
Laura Matsue on Twitter / X
The most radical thing you can do to rebel against this emerging post-literate, brain-slop-world we are entering is read long, complicated books on a daily basis. The ability to pay attention for long periods will be one of the most valuable and rare skills of the future.— Laura Matsue (@lauramatsue) October 18, 2026
Eve Arnold's Time With Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, in Her Own Words | Magnum Photos
In 1961 the photographer was assigned to document the man she came to see as "one of the most dynamic leaders of the century"
Cuba After Castro
Abby Martin is an American journalist and former host of flagships shows on teleSUR and RT America. She is the founder and director of several media organizations, including The Empire Files, an investigative documentary series about US imperialism. Over her career she has interviewed countless heads of state, academics and politicians. In 2019 she released her debut feature film, Gaza Fights For Freedom, which has been called the definitive “crash course” on Palestine. Her new film Earth’s Greatest Enemy (2025), about the environmental impact of the US military, is on a directors tour now. Her uncompromising style has made her a standard-bearer of advocacy journalism, and one of the most well-known alternative media figures in the country.
Beyond “Woodstein”: Narratives of Investigative Journalism
Using a methodology inspired by structural narratology and by James Hamilton’s [2016. Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism. Cambridge: Harvard] economic analysis of inv...
Gazing Back at the Surveillance Cameras That Watch Us (Published 2018)
These photographers explored the implications of a culture of pervasive monitoring.
