"After filing this lawsuit, Henry Holt [the publisher of Snowden's book] represented and committed to the United States that, as it was not a party to any agreement with Snowden, it would not, prior to 1 April, 2020, disburse any funds to Snowden - and/or his agents, assigns, or others acting on his behalf - earned in connection with Permanent Record that had not already been disbursed prior to the initiation of this action", the court said on Wednesday.
In September, the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Snowden, alleging that the former intelligence officer violated non-disclosure agreements that he signed with the National Security Agency before working as a subcontractor.
Additionally, the US authorities said in the complaint that since Snowden gained popularity due to the appropriation of government information, he does not have the right to receive profit from that data that was published in the memoir.
'Permanent Record' book was published earlier in September and contains, according to Snowden, ''details of the CIA and NSA's classified crimes''.
Yesterday, the government sued the publisher of #PermanentRecord for—not kidding—printing it without giving the CIA and NSA a change to erase details of their classified crimes from the manuscript. Today, it is the best-selling book in the world: https://t.co/oMJLOvUjG7
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 18, 2019
In June 2013, Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Snowden handed over to The Washington Post and Guardian newspapers a series of classified materials about the mass surveillance programs that collected telephone, email, and internet browsing data on nearly everyone in the United States, despite the law prohibiting spying on US citizens without a court order. Since then, Snowden has been in self-exposed exile in Russia.
Following Snowden's revelations, the US Congress passed the Freedom Act in 2015, significantly restraining the mass collection of data.
Snowden himself believes that Washington's push to scrap encryption is not to provide safety of the American citizens, but is all "about power".
