Summary

Part 2 deals with Snowden’s career in the intelligence community (IC). In Chapter 11, Snowden explains that at age 22 he did not hold any political beliefs other than those that he had inherited from his family. He felt more aligned with people who worked for the government in non-partisan positions, like his parents, than he did with particular politicians or beliefs. Later, Snowden came to regret his initial support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and came to believe that technology offered better solutions to humanity’s problems than war.

Within the IC, Snowden decided to specialize in systems, a role which gave him an overarching understanding of what all the other technologists were specializing in. The questions Snowden found himself asking about computing systems ultimately led him to ask similar questions about the American system of government.

Chapter 12 details the tendency in recent...