Thread by @doctorow

Today marks the publication of a new edition of Little Brother (2008) and its sequel, Homeland (2013), with a gorgeous cover by @unusualcorp and a spectacular intro by @snowden.

us.macmillan.com/books/97812507…

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I wrote Little Brother in a kind of white heat, finishing the first draft in eight weeks exactly, from first having the idea to typing "The End" (while away on holiday for my anniversary, at 5AM).

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It reflected my fear and rage at the co-option of networked tech for surveillance and control, and the indifferent political response to these alarming developments.

tor.com/2018/04/26/ten…

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Alas, this fear and rage futureproofed the tale, as we continue to regulate tech badly and inadequately, to treat it variously as a video on demand service, or a pornography delivery service, or a radicalization vector, rather than as the nervous system of the 21st century.

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But I have hope this is changing: the pandemic, in particular, has shattered our complacency about tech, made us realize that everything we do involves the net, and shortly, everything we do will require it. It must be taken seriously, and its defects treated as alarming.

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And while the pandemic marks a phase-change in our relations to tech, it comes as the result of a long, steady, mounting tech reform movement.

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I wrote Little Brother after the AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein walked into @EFF's Shotwell St offices and revealed that his employer had built a secret NSA listening post inside its Folsom St switching enter.

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This sparked lawsuits and hearings, including the notorious Senate hearing in which @RonWyden asked James Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

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And in which Clapper perjured himself, answering, "No, sir. … Not wittingly." We knew he was lying. So did a young, idealistic technologist who had washed out of Special Forces training after a severe injury and ended up working for the CIA and NSA.

usatoday.com/story/opinion/…

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That technologist was Edward @Snowden, and the spectacle of Clapper's lies to Congress and the American people prompted him to do something that would alter the course of our history. It also sent him into exile.

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And when he left his Hong Kong hotel room and went underground, he had a book in his carry-on: Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother.

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Macmillan reissued Little Brother/Homeland between a single set of covers as a run-up to October's publication of ATTACK SURFACE, a third, standalone book about technologists work surveilling protest movements, and how they rationalize to themselves.

read.macmillan.com/promo/attacksu…

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It's a story about comparmentalization, self-deception, amends-making and redemption, and it addresses itself to the ways that individual actions relate to systemic changes: how movements are made up of individuals but are bigger than individuals.

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When Snowden agreed to write the intro to this reissue, I was delighted and honored, even moreso than when I saw that footage of him putting HOMELAND into his bag in @LauraPoitras's outstanding, Oscar-winning doc, CITIZENFOUR.

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I was also delighted to have the chance to make some small corrections to the text, reflecting my own evolution in thought and language - this is the author's preferred text.

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You can get it at any bookstore, but if you're after a signed/personalized copy, the good folks at @darkdel are taking orders and I'm going to to drop in and deface them to order:

darkdel.com/store/p1750/Ju…

eof/