In June 2013, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras — and through them to the world — the existence of mass surveillance programmes operated by the National Security Agency in the United States and its allies. The leaked documents, disclosed from Hong Kong and later Moscow, revealed that the NSA was collecting bulk telephone metadata, internet communications, and financial data from millions of people worldwide, without their knowledge and often without specific judicial oversight. The revelations triggered global debate about digital evidence gathering and state surveillance.

The Snowden revelations had an immediate and profound impact on literary and intellectual culture worldwide. Poets, novelists, and essayists engaged with the concept of permanent, invisible surveillance — the knowledge that all digital communications constitute evidence potentially available to the state. Writers including Don DeLillo, Ian McEwan, and a new generation of digital poets engaged with the post-Snowden landscape of monitored life. Snowden's own account, Permanent Record (2019), sits within a tradition of whistleblower literary narrative.