In our two-part series, Ars looks at what Snowden's disclosures have wrought politically and institutionally.
Looking back at the Snowden revelations
Edward Snowden recently released his memoirs. In some parts of the Internet, this has rekindled an ancient debate: namely, was it all worth it? Did Snowden’s leaks make us better off, or did …
Transcript of Edward Snowden's comments at IETF93.
Transcript of Edward Snowden's comments at IETF93. · GitHub
Edward Snowden makes 'moral' case for presidential pardon
Exclusive: Whistleblower says citizens have benefited from his disclosure in 2013 of US and UK government surveillance
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:
Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden
He let Americans evaluate omniscient domestic surveillance for themselves
Edward Snowden: The Untold Story
“Change in plans,” my contact says. “Be in the lobby of the Hotel \_\_\_\_\_\_ by 1 pm. Bring a book and wait for ES to find you.”
How conspiracy theories conquered America
Things have changed a lot since January 6th, 2021.
We Shouldn’t Wait Another Fifteen Years for a Conversation About
With high-profile hacks in the headlines and government officials trying to reopen a long-settled debate about encryption, information security has become a mainstream issue. But we feel that one
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
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Privacy under attack: the NSA files revealed new threats to democracy
We now know the apparatus of repression has been attached to the democratic state, but our struggle for privacy is far from hopeless. By Eben Moglen
How 9/11 changed the way America surveils its citizens • Stateline
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, transformed how American intelligence and law enforcement agencies collect, share and analyze information. Twenty-five years later, that infrastructure has merged with a digital world capable of generating vast amounts of data about Americans — and artificial intelligence is making it easier to connect and analyze that information. The result is a surveillance system far more powerful than anything imaginable in 2001, raising new questions about privacy, policing and civil liberties.
Political polarization at its worst since the Civil War
Data scientists try to explain the U.S. government’s shifting ideologies over the past four decades.
